The things we must do
by Pentuppen
Summary: An alternative version of 'What you owe'. Different circumstances bring Lavellan and Solas together again, just weeks before the final confrontation between the elves and the Inquisition. Nothing can change, it's already too late. At least that is what they have come to believe.
1. Chapter 1

The old wolf roamed across the Exalted plains and a trembling silence followed, broken only by the sound of dry grass beneath weary feet. The land had changed in the few years since he had last been here, they had torn down the battlements and dilapidated houses, dragged the bodies from their pits and gibbets and began to rebuild, but the land still held its scars and the when the wind was blowing right, the undertone of old blood still lived in the air. Like the rest of Thedas, they were slowly rebuilding, burying the memory of corypheus brick by brick, it was hard not to see it all as a dreadful waste, and yet ignorance was their gift, better they never know until the very last second. Pity on the eve of war was a dangerous thing under most circumstances, but his is distant, a perfunctory sorrow that will not outweigh the importance of what is to come.

What is not perfunctory is the way he occasionally glances at the empty spaces beside him, last time he was here those spaces had been occupied by those he had called friends, despite his best intentions. Now he walked alone with the early evening sun setting behind him, unable to shake the feeling that he should be hearing more than one set of steps whispering over the yellowed grass. Those that he would call friends are now reluctant enemies, and those that serve him live in too much idolized fear to presume. It is remarkable to think that he could walk anywhere on Thedas unremarked, but it has always been a natural gift to go unnoticed when he wished and the people here were far too busy to bother noticing a nameless elf travelled the wilds.

The entrance to Ghilan'Nain's grove was deserted, the Inquisition presence long since moving on to more desperate matters, now that the plains were free of rifts and freemen alike. He found himself relieved, a confrontation with the Inquisition sat just upon the horizon, but he had no desire to decimate a few of it's scouts simply in order to pass by. Beneath the cool and crumbling arches there was a more natural silence, one that he remembered quite clearly from the last time they had approached this place. The crackling and spitting of the open rift had been neutralized and the silence had descended, soft and thick as fallen snow, a notable contrast to the sounds of war in the plains beyond.

Water and mud sucked at his feet as the swampland began to take over the path. With eyes dead ahead he tread carefully, not for fear of losing his footing, but because there was more than the usual assortment of small, many eyed creatures beneath this water. Down there lay memories upon which he could ill afford to tread. A liquid growl behind him offered much in the way of distraction however, a pair of wyverns having crept up to this lone wanderer in search of an easy meal. He regarded them with a slow eyed impatience before slamming the blade of his staff into the swamp bed between his feet, flinging a rippling shockwave across the water, the flames erupting in its wake to envelope the first creature who bucked and screamed in agony and panic. The second Wyvern was older and battle scarred, cunning enough to leap aside and charge him, veering away from the first swipe of the staff's blade before lunging in again to snap at the ironwood weapon. He feel's a little of his old self rise along with his blood as the Wyvern snarled and tugged at the staff, trying to snap the ancient wood with little success.

His magic gathered into one point and drove down in an ethereal fist, a force comprised of will that slammed into the Wyverns back, snapping it's spine, sending it into shrieking convulsions. He ended its pain with his blade through the creature's eye, trying not to think of the automatic gesture of skinning the creature for its added value to their armourer. Such small memories had the capacity to bloom into larger and complicated thoughts, but the years of enforced solitude had presented him with the time to learn, and he stepped over this particular trap with only the faintest of pangs before he was moving on. So many memories leading to so many paths, but all those paths lead to the same place and as long as he could turn his mind aside before he reached _that_ place, he would be able to continue without feeling the pain of it's thorny trail.

The stone hand still lay like some great pale spider in the grass as the water gave way to viscous mud and then finally dry land. The stone was warm beneath his hand, and rough with years of weathering. Yet he can still see then, what he could see now, the towering form of the statue to whom this last piece once belonged. He remembers the faint panic that had touched him when they first descended into this place, the fear of what they might find if enough clues had remained in tact. Yet the years had encroached upon those secrets and hidden their meaning from the rest of them, giving up only the meanest of it's treasures, keeping the rest for itself.

He peered down into the ragged hole beside the stone hand, and frowned at the wooden steps that had finally rotted away enough to make climbing down less easy than previously, an irritation to say the least, but certainly nothing to make him turn back now. There were easier ways to descend into the chambers below, but there was something to be said for feeling the exertion of his own body after so much time closeted away with his plans and the ever growing sorrow that followed them. Here and now there was only the dying sun on his upturned face and the rough feel of rope in passing through his hands as he first anchored then lowered himself into the waiting gloom below.

Grit and loose rubble crunched beneath his feet once he found himself on more or less solid ground, and the silence here was thick and expectant, as if long ago something here had held its breath and never exhaled. When he had been here as part of the Inquisition, he'd felt the years of this place weighing down upon him, and he'd never wanted so badly to be apart from all of them, to curl up amongst this ancient stone and seek its dreams. But there had not been time, only the growing tension as his companions had scratched the surface of the secrets in the place, and relieved when they had left with only a few minor bruises and trinkets.

He stepped around the splintered and jagged remains of the staircase, glancing at the device that had opened the first set of gates for them, particles of magic still hovered in the air like weak fireflies and as he moved on, he met the imperious stare of his own avatar, but only for long enough to feel another of those pangs, sharper this time because that stone wolf lived unnervingly too close to thoughts that will do him no service here. Yet he kneels before the pedestal, fingers tracing the barest outlines of his old language, seeking the wards within and bringing them to life with but the lightest touches of his magic. The statue's pedestal coughed dust from its seams as stone ground along with ancient gears and slid forward to unveil the stairs beneath.

For all their towering spires and grand halls, his people were not above burying their secrets like the children of stone. He is but three steps down before the mechanism was tripped again and the pedestal slid back into place, leaving him in temporary darkness. Another four cautious steps and he was closing his eyes against a sudden blueish green flare that eventually died to the calmer, ethereal light of veilfire torches that appeared to line the descending walls. That such old mechanisms and magic could still work after all this time fascinated him, and given the appropriate time he might have lingered, but he could no more indulge upon old history than he could in memory. His singular purpose here made it easy to close doors that creaked open when memory or old habits tried to grasp him, all the better to steady the hand that would soon bring all out war to bloody then scorch the land. The scope of all that had come to pass since he had decided to rebel was immense enough to crush him if he let it, to accept all the death that it would culminate to, he needed to be distant from them and from himself.

The bottom of the stairs opened up into a circular room, its surrounding archways dark and about as inviting as an open mouth. The glittering tiles that had decorated this stone have long since fallen away, some glimmered weakly in the dirt after another rush of veilfire, the torches behind him dying, as if the flames only followed his steps. He doesn't require a map to choose a path, though he stops only two steps into his chosen corridor. The veilfire did not follow him here, now he trained his senses to feel for that touch of old magic, his feet stepping out onto the tiled surface only when he is absolutely sure of their placement. It had been a while since he'd felt the slow trickle of adrenaline, then again it has been some time since anything has been able to pose itself as a threat to him, this impending war would be much fairer and less like slaughter than it was going to be. For the first time since he'd set out on this journey, a memory slipped its way past his defences, the faint scent of pine assaulting his olfactory nerve, causing pupils to suddenly dilate and his foot to skip an integral stone.

His own subconscious self preservation pivoted his body to bring both feet upon the same safe stone just as he heard the click and felt the rush of something heavy passing before it embedded into the wall, barely missing his sidelong body. Solas let all the air out of his lungs in one slow exhale, dimly aware of his heart rate increasing, wiping his palm carefully over his brow where beads of sweat had gathered. He risked the dim glow of fire in his cupped hand and raised a lone brow at the spear that slowly but smoothly retracted back into the wall. Old or not, some of these mechanisms were still as deadly as the day they were made and now his feet move with exaggerated care while he forcibly pressed his back to another door in his mind.

The veilfire returned once he reached another set of descending stairs, and he felt the close heat curling against his face even before he reached the bottom where a vast lake of clear water bubbled and hissed, steam pouring from it's surface to paint ghosts in the air. The smell here was flat and mineral and the pulse of old, powerful words pulled him to a crumbling epitaph carved upon the damp stone of a pillar. His voice was low while he whispered the words of supplication, yet he still felt the ripples of its echoes which seemed to translate upon the surface of the clear water that now boiled and thrashed as several stones rose to the surface.

It was easy to be all too aware of what might happen if another 'casual' step caused him to slip here, the heat emanating around him enough to keep his eyes upon the far bank and his feet carefully placed.

He was beginning to feel the press of the land above him now, he could not quite shrug away the idea of it swallowing him whole in the world's last defence against his plans. But it was hard to feel much fear in a place that was his own long ago, the memory of this place is all but lost now, yet he senses what it was, like a picture hovering transparently over the reality that was now. He wanders for another hour, slipping through barriers and remembering old traps that still had their teeth, the stone feeling more and more like it encased a tomb the deeper he went.

This place had been built in the prime of his youth while the cusp of his power still made him burn fiercely with the pride for which he was named. As he dodged several gouts of flame spat from the open mouths of stone dragons, he had to wonder what in the void he was thinking at the time. Likely he was trying to produce the architectural equivalent of pounding his chest he thought sourly as he stopped just short of another spear that sharply barred his path.

He found himself in another circular room made of huge stone slabs, seemingly faceless until he stepped slowly around the walls, touching upon random spots that became less random once their runes came to life. When one of the runes flared with red light, he barely has time to realise he has made a mistake before the floor began to rumble and shift beneath his feet and hands came up to cover his ears as the the sound of grinding stone shook it. The blocks began to shift, moving to find new configurations, revealing gaps beyond that were being swiftly covered as each slab found a new home. His eyes settled upon one spot in particular, seeing past the moving stone to the weak veilfire glow beyond, the tension in his muscles released like a slingshot and he dove through the opening gap with little finesse, mentally cursing his younger self as he tumbled through the other side, the stone finally covering the opening with a solid sound.

Panting just a little, he picked himself up from the dusty floor and turned a full circle, squinting into the cavern beyond, presumably the only means of escape for one foolish enough to make a wrong move. His fingers moved over the seam of the newly placed slab, though he knew that for now at least they would not move again. He felt no panic however, every secret place had its ways in and out and if he became desperate, sheer force would be enough to take him to the centre of this absurdly conceited maze, for now however, he was trapped, at least a mile underground at his estimate.

"Hmmm yes, that one got me too. It seemed like you were posing a riddle about wolves, I only realised you actually meant hunters after I activated the wrong rune"

Now he did panic, very quietly and with perfect outward calm, yet his heart still squeezed sharply in his chest before dropping swiftly into his gut where it pulsed mercilessly fast. He wasn't prone to hallucinations, nor had his imagination been allowed the freedom to construct such an accurate auditory phantom. He swallowed thickly and turned to the figure sitting on a flattened rock before a small fire, one foot resting on her knee while she casually brushed the dust from its sole. For a fleeting second his mind is unaccountably blank, he couldn't even begin to fathom what she was doing here, let alone how she came to find this place, he is having far more trouble coming to terms with her actual existence in _this_ place, at _this_ time.

The low, sweet tone of her voice touched upon him like a hand long forgotten and for a moment, while he watched her gaze lift and her eyes find his, he suddenly found it hard to remember what it felt to be a god,

"Hello Solas, how have you been?"

 **~~o0O0o~~**

" _So, does he?"_

 _Sera's brash demand hangs in the crisp air between them as they lean upon the battlements and look down onto the courtyard below where those that woke at dawn began to start their daily chores. Varric likened the workings of skyhold as a machine with many moving parts, Talitha thinks it looks very much like an anthill with its people scurrying back and forth, which is why she spent quite a lot of time trying not to politically step on it. Now she turns away from watching Blackwall step out of the stables with an axe in his hands, tilting her head at the gutter snipe elf with a feigned expression of confusion._

" _Does he what?"_

 _Sera snorts and rolls her eyes, well aware that she's about to drawn into another game of 'lost in translation', but she shakes the snow from her hair and drops her voice to the loudest whisper possible._

" _Does he yell Elven Glory when he does it?"_

 _The urge to laugh here is of course suppressed in favour of keeping up the false confusion that so exasperated the archer._

" _Does what?"_

" _Oh you know, I'm not explaining the birds and the friggen bees to someone who lived up a tree!"_

" _I lived in an aravel dear. Does what?"_

 _Sera sighs and presses her back to the freezing stone with a shivered curse before she began to count off her fingers one by one._

" _Does he yell Elven Glory when he 'humps the halla' or 'swishes his staff', 'angles his dangle', no wait, his heads so stuck up the fade it'd probably be something like 'summons the spirit"_

 _She doesn't have the heart to tell Sera that no such euphemisms have come anywhere close to accurate, mostly because she knows the sly elf would spend at least half a day discussing the possibility of the elven apostates inability to perform with Blackwall and Bull, and the other half relentlessly interrogating him about it. Best to keep looking confused and smiling blankly, as if she couldn't have thrown a few examples of her own onto Sera's growing list._

" _I haven't the faintest of clues what you're talking about Sera, weren't we up here for something else anyway?"_

 _Sera swings herself precariously onto the ledge and joins her in looking down at the moving people below._

" _Don't change the subject, are you telling me you two haven't lured the snake into the cave yet?"_

 _A heavy clang and a muttered swear heralds Cullen's journey to the training grounds as usual, and Talitha doesn't have to wonder if the timing of that last sentence hadn't been perfect in Sera's opinion._

" _He has never shouted Elven Glory in all the time i have known him, or whispered it for that matter"_

" _That's not a proper answer your Inquisitorialness"_

" _No it isn't. Oh look! Get ready"_

 _The conversation is laid aside now in preference for the action in the courtyard. There is the heavy sound of steel impacting wood, a strained moment of silence, and then the world is filled with angry buzzing and far less mumbled curses before Sera grabs her hand and begins tugging her towards one of the battlement towers, her steps impeded by the fact that they are both doubled over laughing._

" _You used bees?! You said it would be custard!"_

 _ **~~o0O0o~~**_

His initial shock seemed to last a little too long, long enough for him to note that she wore the faintest of grins, and that old look of barely suppressed triumph at so effectively finding a crack in his facade. He would have applauded if he were prone to Varric's brand of theatrics, instead he let his body un-tense even as his gaze swept the rest of the cavern, seeking the deeper shadows for the slightest indication of another's presence. She folded her arms and crossed her legs in a show of polite patience while he did this, happy to let him seek out hidden threats, as if any of them could be as dangerous as her. Part of him already knows she is here alone, she would have considered the research and finding of this place her own, but the fruitless searching gave him time to compose himself, to pick up the loosened pieces of his mask and put them back into place. It wasn't easy, her presence has undeniably shaken him, and not only for the implications of what she too might seek in this place. Staying away from her had been necessary, even vital to his resolve, pushing the memories of her out of his mind had been brutal in its execution, but it had been enough, and every day that resolve grew stronger, her memory not distant, merely shrouded beneath duty. Of course this leaves him ill prepared for a confrontation when and where he least expected it, and it took more than just a little of his will to pull himself together again and face her.

"Satisfied? You could look under a few rocks if it will make you feel any better, personally I'd worry more about the fact that we're trapped in here until that puzzle of yours goes through its daily reset phase"

He approached the small fire, trying not to let his brow draw into a frown as he wondered at the audacity of her intellect. She had surprised him with the sharpness of her wit long ago, and that of course had been the first nail in the coffin, but to find this place should have been even beyond her scope of tireless research, she should not have been there, but she was, and now she was watching him with open interest, as if she knew that the next few moves would be his while she was still clearly several moves ahead. As he neared that almost self satisfied expression of softened amusement he felt her gall both prick at his pride and nudge awake that wonder he had felt upon meeting a mortal with a mind that could challenge his own.

Now that he was closer, he could see that her posture trembled slightly, and the lines on her brow that warred with the vague smug tilt of her mouth, yet she was adamant with her gaze and he was now far too proud to look away. Pride couldn't blunt the sting when flame and shadow shifted over her face to turn the black of her eyes to that deep blue, but it could impede the desire to reach out and touch the face that framed them.

"Your timing is both ill advised and...challenging Inquisitor"

She hissed through her teeth as though burnt, but did so behind a bladed smile, her eyes dimming to black in the shadows once again as she shifted and finally revealed that she hadn't entirely escaped his traps unscathed. She prodded the stitched line from hip to navel, a wound from one of the spears no doubt, hissing for real this time before she sighed and cocked a glance up to his again.

"So we're back to 'Inquisitor' again I see, does this mean I must address you as Fen'Harel while monologuing about how i outsmarted your secrets and how you'll never get away with this? Because if that's the case I'd rather we just skip that part, I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face"

"You are still bleeding"

"You are stating the obvious"

He turned away from her then, beginning to pace in a tight circle around the rock upon which she now sat, stubbornly ignoring the thin line of blood exacerbated by her inexpert prodding.

"Why are you here?"

"That's a stupid question for an intelligent man, try again"

"It's a perfectly valid question, one that would answer the question of whether I should be arming myself or not"

"Oh I would have done that the minute I said hello, mostly on principle, I am the reviled 'Inquisitor' after all. Shouldn't you have crushed me by now? I'm only asking on the basis of someone currently unarmed and wondering whether she should bother remedying that or just let the rocks fall"

Oh she was anything but unarmed and part of him knew it, she didn't have to use wiles or even wit to draw him in and tug gently on the locks to all those closed doors. Talitha would always rebel in her own way, and it was never with a roar or a beating of the chest, but in the soothing lull of her humour and bald manner of speaking. She would never bend a knee in anything but respect or comfort, and she had _never_ been afraid of him. Now he wonders if he should not feel afraid or relieved by her lack of fear. His name had been woven into half the prayers to the maker now, they had shaped him into the next shadow to be overcome by the righteous flame. But here her branded Inquisitor's armour has been exchanged for the nostalgia of loose Dalish fabrics cinched at the waist by an old, thick belt, she carries no righteous fire to burn him with, only a razor like smile to slice at his well rehearsed calm.

"Your being here is unlikely to be a coincidence"

"Oh it isn't, I headed down here the minute you were seen crossing into the plains"

He doesn't fall into the trap of asking how she knew, or even where her scouts had been, he finds himself too occupied with dismay at the growing feeling of frustration that was familiar, yet tools he once used to verbally spar with this woman are ill used and rusted with age, trying to forget had its downside. In a world inhabited by those who wished to either bow or bestow him with cringe worthy titles, it was difficult to now face someone who had no regard for what the mantel of Fen'Harel meant.

He spun and planted his fists either side of her on the rock, eyes narrowed and inches from his own. The touch of his magic once ghosted cautiously over hers in private moments, now he let it roar over her like a heated wind that would nip and pull at her skin. It was an overstated gesture, but he wanted to surprise that smile from her face for just a moment, it would make him feel less off gaurd, less like he was gently being made a fool of.

She blinked once and then very carefully tilted her face up just a fraction to make the distance between them suddenly perilous. He held his breath as she spoke quietly and carefully, as if she didn't dare disturb the scant space of air suddenly warming between them.

"Solas, I have seen you engage in an hour long discussion with a spirit about the mating dance of a beetle, I have seen you naked, and I have seen you dance while wearing the champion of bad hats on your noble head. What in the void makes you think you can possibly scare me, more than I'm scaring you right now?"

He clenched his jaw against the instinct to recoil from her, slowly drawing back and composing his expression of ambivalence, suddenly very aware of how well she's been able to read him thus far. With her personal space returned he now watched her stand and daintily step out of his line of fire. It was an exaggeration, they both knew the difference between his bark and her bite by now. She was laughing at him behind her eyes and yet further back is a deep reproach she was trying to be too mature to show.

"In answer to your question, I came here in some last and terribly desperate bid to stop you from letting this happen, and maybe persuade you to let us help you find another way. I admit, I sort of imagined a more heroic scene, with less stitches but last time I became a hero because I fell out of a hole so I suppose i considered it worth a shot"

She shrugged and the gesture was so absurdly normal that only now was it allowed to dawn upon him, how much he had missed her. She had a gift for condensing all the horror and the unspoken things into small and far more manageable bites of her humor. Her grief and heartache were no less severe for it, she wore their lines on her face, but she would refuse to let them crush her until the very last moment. It was still admirable and it was still painful to witness that she hadn't changed, not all the way, not where it mattered.

"Talitha, we both know you will not stop me, I would rather you didn't try"

It wasn't pride that guided his tone now, more the weary weight of knowing that he spoke the truth. In a test of magical skill he outmatched her by several thousand years, and he has never desired to come face to face with her in battle, he abhorred the idea that sat alongside the rest of the few terrors that still remained to a man like him. But he didn't think she had come all this way just to fall upon her own sword for the sake of it, she was too smart for her own good, intelligent enough to know that violence wasn't where her strength lay"

"Why did you draw me to the crossroads?"

The question surprised him, even when he had been half expecting it the moment he saw her, a question he once believed he'd never be called upon to answer, he didn't think he had it in him to answer her while keeping the prideful mask in place and shook his head as if her question were some source of physical irritation.

"We are but days away from war Talitha, do you believe now is the time for-"

She was suddenly there in front of him, a finger digging into his chest as she narrowed her eyes, her mouth curving into a smile as sharp and full of deadly intent as a scythe.

"Oh I think it's the perfect time. I had a very well composed speech designed to appeal to the parts of you i still remembered before the dread wolf became a name to frighten even the Andrastian children. Because I know the worst of you now, there is nothing left that's worth hiding because our armies have gone _way_ past the point of no return. But mostly because we're trapped here for a number of hours and there is no eluvian for you to hide behind now"

He stared down at the finger still digging into his chest just above the jawbone still threaded on leather about his neck, his eyes slowly moving up to that determined expression that gave her eyes a cat like tilt. The problem was, she had something of a point, there was nothing left to hide, nothing that would change the nature of their relationship in the time they had left. The time _she_ had left, because he knew that he was going to win, just as he knew she would be there on that final battlefield, because they needed her.

"Is that what you truly want, for me to hurt you again?"

His voice was grave and hoarse, he didn't want to revisit those old, hurt places he'd spent long enough covering up over the years, he both misses and despises the man he was back then, he was glad not to have to hide behind his face any longer, while he envied the freedom he'd had to be with her. He knew the parts she sought to see in him, they were not false, not products of an idealized imagination, they were simply parts of a whole that she never truly knew, and those parts had become dangerous to him because they remembered her the best.

"How can it hurt more than what we have already done to each other Solas?"

She backed away from him now, sitting back upon the rock with a weary hiss of pain, and he could tolerate it no longer. He pushed his sleeves up his forearms and seated himself on the rock beside her, ignoring her suspicious glare.

"Very well, i shall give you the truth of it, but on the condition that you let me do something about that wound"

"Isn't that counterproductive to your recent plans?"

"I never thought you the type to cut off your nose to spite your face"

She seemed satisfied by the swiftness of his answer and for a moment he didn't understand until he realised he had been tricked and lapsed into the forgotten rhythm of that rapid back and forth that they had often shared. Losing control unnerved him badly enough, to do so around her was like walking through a field of bones while trying not to snap one beneath your feet, one wrong move and it would all come tumbling down. He lowered his eyes to the stitched wound and found he was sufficiently too distracted by wondering where to start to even question this intimate proximity.

"I drew you to the Crossroads for many reasons, to save your life, to stop the qunari….and because I had to know whether I could truly walk away again"

He paused for her reply but heard nothing in return, he only notes that the rise and fall of her breath has become temporarily held, she knew there was more. Drawing out a slim, gilded knife from his belt he began to unpick the stitches with tiny, precise movements, her silence even negating any sounds of the pain that made her flat belly pull inwards and tense in reaction.

"There was still doubt within me and you had almost undone me once before, if I could see past my desire to be with you again, I could move on and finally commit myself. It was cruel and undoubtedly selfish test. But it worked"

His hands passed over the newly opened wound, the magic catching on torn flesh, working slowly to reknit and replace. He stared at this small miracle of magic rather than face the hot gaze he could now feel boring into the back of his neck. He deserved her anger, he knew that, but it made facing it no easier knowing that, and he wouldn't falter from calling himself a coward at this point.

"You know I'd like to say I'm not angry just disappointed right now, but that would be something of a lie. Still, I demanded and answer"

He would have much preferred it if she were not so calm, so reasonable, even amidst her own professed anger, it was more than he deserved, or perhaps it was simply a well designed tool of retribution. Swords and arrows might pain him, but her dismay of him, the shattering of that image she had held onto, facing that was a different kind of pain that pierced deeper and its wounds itched for far longer. Still she _did_ ask, and denying her any truth now was pointless and unworthy of what had been between them, he would still honor that bond in the smallest ways he could.

"I suppose I was still hoping you were a monster all along and it was all part of your plan, It rather takes the wind out of my sails to find out you were no happier than I was. It does not bring me peace to know you tortured yourself while you broke me"

Her tone has become light, forcibly conversational in order to almost disregard the aftermath of the Crossroads and what he saw on the other side of the eluvian just moments before her companions found her still kneeling there.

"It was a test of my resolve, it was not designed to be painless"

"Did the agony make your cause seem any more justified?"

Just when he had started to feel the weight of old guilt beginning to find its way in, she roused his temper just enough to narrow his eyes and thin his lips. She was mocking him again, her voice still low and sweet but still those lips made a fool of his confession and he found he could take this only so long before that same old pride reared his head and opened his mouth for him.

"Does your self sacrifice lend your armies any more power?"

The smile did not fall from her face but something in her eyes turned hard as flint and he regretted his own rash inner ego almost as soon as the words left him, though they both knew he was too stubborn to take them back now.

"Maybe I did want you to hurt me again, maybe i thought if you did it one last time I might finally see you for the bastard they all say you are. Perhaps I already knew I'd never beat you to the other orb and this was all just an excuse to rub salt in an old wound and finally call it a day"

He found his patience dwindling fast, and with it, just a little more of that control, enough to grasp her chin and force her gaze onto his, the weight of his years boring down on her, his magic once again pushing at her boundaries, forcing a harsh gasp from her throat before her eyes narrowed back at him and her own power swelled against him.

"Enough, I will not sit here and engage in mutual torture. You wished to talk, so tell me. Why are you _really_ here?"

She has not lied to him, she's merely buried the larger truth under many smaller ones, and he suddenly found himself tired of the web they had woven between them, of the careful lies and tactfully told truths. They are too late in the game to change things now, their actions were committed and nothing either of them could say, would change what was to happen. For once it was her turn to look uncertain. He saw words trembling behind her lips and the strain it took to hold them back while pinned under his gaze. He showed her no mercy, playing upon the way she loathed to back down when he challenged her. It had once been the source of their mutual respect.

"I came...because I had to see you again. I'm going to have to step out on the front lines of a battle i did not ask for, a battle I know I won't win. All my friends are going to die. I'm going to die. Your armies are just large enough to make it a slaughter, or a valiant last stand depending on the way you want to look at it"

He held her there in place while she spoke, but he barely felt his fingers now as she finally reached the core of the truth, stripped of her defensive humor and naked before his eyes. She didn't cry, but he got the impression this was only because a person had only so many tears in them. The weight of her wretched sadness was no less than his own. His spanned across centuries, but what she lacked in years she made up for in feeling far too keenly than was fair.

"Everyone I know is trying to fill their days as much as exhaustion will allow. Josephine is arranging banquets every other night, my soldiers are copulating like blasted rabbits and Varric is determined to win every scrap of gold in skyhold before the end comes. And I am here, in a dark and filthy cave, with you. So maybe it's _me_ who turned out to be a monster"

It told him exactly how far he had withdrawn from the less complicated mortal thoughts when he realised how this had never occurred to him. Her world was going to come to an end, and some of her last days were being spent here, in a place and time when she knew she had no real power to stop him. The thought of her determination to salvage what she could from her pain began to paint larger cracks in his mask and his fingers loosened at her jaw, the hard expression in his eyes melting, which only seemed to irritate her. She pulled away with an impatient expression and pushed off the stone to stand and take up his position of pacing.

"Don't look at me like that, neither one of us has time for pity anymore, I have graves to dig and you have to go on trying to forget"

She faced the blocked puzzle wall and sighed.

"That would have sounded a lot more profound were i not trapped and unable to walk away from you right now"

"You asked a question, demanded an answer. It was never going to be one you would enjoy"

"Yes thank you smart-arse I'm well aware"

"You are being childish"

"Of course I am, love goes hand in hand with terminal idiocy, sweaty palms and a tendency for mutual masochism apparently"

He actually bit down on his tongue against the instinct to laugh here, the way she painted her thoughts had often surprised him like this, and it hurts to laugh that way again, moreso when she does not look to bask within this small victory she'd conjured. She still loved him, it didn't surprise him but knowing didn't ease the lurch of his heart or dampen the knowledge that he still loved her too, it fixed nothing and explained everything about the tangled mess of hurt and regret between them. She was already a ghost in the making, much like the rest of this world that had grown around him while he'd slept, and she would continue to be a ghost whose memory would haunt every weak moment that remained to him.

"If i could change the way things were…"

"There is no change for people like us Solas, haven't you been paying attention?"

She did turn back to him now, sweetly sad for the obvious point that he has apparently missed.

"People like us are burned at the stake, we die on the battlefields in one last glorious rush, we fight the monsters knowing another one will rise up in its place and we swallow the roles given to us because we always believe it's the right thing to do. But looking at us now….god's we are almost parodies of ourselves, swiping at each other with invisible knives because even when it hurts, we're connected in some way. We're just another of a long line of stories, and everybody loves a tragic ending"

Watching her slowly torture herself did nothing for the strength of his resolve or his ability to remain neutral, how had he allowed this to go so badly. Why could he not have listened the first time his instinct clearly warned him that he would only bring the pain down upon both of them? He strove to be a beacon of hope, something good that would guide his people back to their former selves, but it was hard not to see every foul thing he'd had to do to achieve his goal, hard not to see it's mark stamped all over her, no matter how hard she tried to be her old self, for him.

"If i could have found another way.."

She knelt before him now, the sadness even heavier in her eyes than before, and it is for him, the man who least deserved it. He doesn't know how he knows, perhaps he has simply seen too many facets of her sadness to be mistaken now.

"Solas, there isn't another way. You are theirs now. Their gods have been taken away and whether you like it or not, they will see you as the next man to bow to, to pray to. You'll hate it, I know you enough to know that, but when you realise it's not as simple as tearing down the veil, everything will change, just so it can stay the same"

It had occurred to him, of course it had. With so man of his people already succumbing to supplication and even outright adoration, he'd already seen the signs of what was to come. The role of godhood was never one he wanted to wear, but with the momentum of his people gathering, it was starting to dawn upon him that he likely wouldn't have a choice, they would affix that duty to him themselves. Perhaps he might have been able to bear it had she been at his side, but he'd known from the very beginning that she'd never be able to watch her friends die, freedom had been taken away from her and replaced by honour, and honour had its price, one that demanded she stand upon that battlefield with the rest of them. It demanded her life in payment and that was beyond unfair after all that she had given.

"How is it that you can still love me? Continuing to love you has always been painfully easy, you never change who you are, even when the end is close enough to touch. But I have become a monster who must do monstrous things, why has your hate not clouded any love you have for me?"

That weary sadness partly slipped away when she smiled with a slow shake of her head, a few more ashen strands escaping the loose knot at the back, and he was vividly reminded of how it looked to see all that hair tumble from its bindings.

"Because of Solas. Because the man I love grew over time, and though he's put on a mask and strengthened his will, he's still Solas. Because love doesn't give a flying nug about morality, and because I think that knowing somebody loves you as insanely as you love them, is the only thing keeping you from truly cutting all ties between the rest of the world and Fen'Harel"

She was right. He could have argued that he his much of himself had been buried under lies when they had met, he could have asked how she thought she could possibly know him under those circumstances. But over time she had drawn out more and more of him from those many secret places in his head. Not enough to tell the truth, though she had come close, just enough to bind herself to his soul, to be that part of him that was keeping him from taking the final step into losing himself forever. He had spent the intervening years believing she was his weakness, and in some very simple ways she was, but only now does he realise how close he is to stepping into old shoes. He had spent a large portion of his life separating himself from the Evanuris, now in order to set things right he was stepping very close to becoming one of them. But she was in his head now, and with every cruel move he had to make, her reaction was always there, making each and every hard decision almost soul destroying, as it should be. None of what he had to do was righteous, every move he made now stole lives and ruined thousands more, nothing about that should be easy or negligible, the memory of her has always kept him from ever thinking he had a _right_ to do what he has done in the past few years.

It would have been easy for him to see the lives of the men and women who fought against him as mere numbers. He rarely presided over the battles, and a hundred men could easily become just a single moving entity when placed upon a war map. Numbers were not sentient, they didn't love and work and fight, they wouldn't mourn or starve or die screaming and afraid, numbers narrowed the world down to themselves. They were mortal lives, and as fragile, mean and often selfish as they were, they could not be forgotten as a series of calculated losses in some dusty ledger. It was sometimes hard to see them as individuals, but that was always how the downslide into seeing even his own people as things. Any time the desire to pity them began to waver or become jaded, her face had come to his mind, those angular features cast down in misery for what he was about to do. In those moments he has always been reminded of the more extraordinary mortals that lived among them, he would remember that he was snuffing out the light as well as the dark.

"You are….an impossible creature. I sometimes wonder what would have happened had you never been there to interrupt the ritual, but mostly I think you are as inevitable as the end before us"

He pushed away from the rock ledge and slid to his knees beside her, now moving without consulting anything but his first instincts. It was like walking a tight rope, if he thought beyond what was in front of him he would fall into his own self recriminations. He reached up behind her, trying not to laugh when her eyes tried to follow that hand to the back of her head.

"You are ridiculous, and inappropriate. Your ability to take absolutely nothing seriously astounds me, as does your attachment to that awful song about the bear"

He touched a single carved stick, the only thing keeping her unruly hair in place.

"Your proclivity for falling into bad company is almost historic, the habit of emulating them is quite often barbaric, and the way you change their lives for the better is, amazing"

Pulling the stick free with a single tug, he watched the slow uncurl and tumble of that ashen mass, the long strands instantly softening the sharper lines of her features. She was watching him as both hunter and prey now, her eyes narrowed and quick to track his movements and expressions, yet one hand shook slightly where it rested loosely on her knee.

"You find the best of yourself in the worst possible times, after almost six years you have refused to let the horror change you where it truly matters, you are an impossible woman at an impossible time, and though what we have is cruel as well as highly unfair, you were meant for me"

She was staring at him now, and for one frightening moment he is given a preview of what it was like to see someone you loved wearing that neutral mask. Yet something changed in her eyes, it would be subtle if he were not suddenly and desperately seeking it before his own good sense and rules could find him. That smile, that slow, sweet and often mocking smile, it touched the corner of her mouth, pulling her lips into that grinning curve.

"Couldn't you have worked that out about three years earlier?"

"Hah!"

He couldn't stop it this time, it was her gift and she used it well, there was sometimes pleasure to be found when he occasionally wondered how she would have behaved had she ever met the Evanuris. He bowed his forehead to her shoulder with quiet laughter and she patted him on the back of his neck as commiseration for his enforced lack of control.

"I mean I'm aware that being Fen'Harel is serious business, but at this point we could have been discovering shipwrecks in Antiva. Instead we're in a dark cave, miles under the earth, it's almost like you're _trying_ to repel me at this point. Didn't they _have_ girls back when you should have been taught the finer points of romance?"

The laughter caught again, and he found it hard to stop. It wasn't particularly funny unless your sense of humour happened to be slightly warped over the years, yet the laughter felt so...normal. The laughter seemed to strip away the layers he had put on as his shield between himself and what had to be done. When he laughed, it was almost enough for him to believe that he was just Solas, about to be reduced to hysteria by a wicked Dalish woman whom he loved. For just a moment it was simple.

"I have been meaning to ask…" He lifted his head and forced a stern look to cover his his humour, "Exactly _when_ have you ever seen me naked?"

She snorted, it was not a ladylike sound at all and that just made her laugh all the harder. The kind of laughter that practically advertised the fact that its owner's mind had just dropped into the gutter.

"That night you rolled out of your tent pulling little green lizards off you"

"You were not there, I remember being particularly relieved about that at the time"

"Nope, but Sera made sketches, she assured me they were accurate. It's a trust thing apparently"

He laughed again, dropping his head back to her shoulder in defeat and dared to slip his hands about her waist, fingers immediately reuniting with the tactile sensation of the leather belt around it. There was so much ahead of him, and all of it would be hard, right to the very end. If this was all he had, if this moment here was all he would be allowed, he would take it and not squander it on wondering if he should or could.

Solas felt her slowly tilt, a careful hand on the back of his neck drawing him with her as she lay back beside the fire. He moved just enough to have his head rest upon her hip, her warmth comforting, the lack of any other thought...freeing. He felt her moving in her prone position as her hand left him to throw more wood onto the fire beside them.

"Solas?"

"Yes vhenan?"

It was hard not to tense when the word left his mouth with no real input from his brain, and he all but expected her to tense too. But there was only a moment of held breath before she spoke again and he relaxed.

"Take us somewhere else"

He doesn't ask her what she means, the request is a simple one. Turning his cheek against the warmth of her hip and the soft worn feel of Dalish cloth, he closed his eyes. He could take her away, if only for a little while, steal her from this world to live in one of his own making.

For just a while she could be more real than the world he was trying to bring back to life.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't have to expend much thought in choosing the correct place, he simply allowed himself to sink amongst the collective memories of her, and his will would construct the appropriate place while he drifted into sleep next to her. When was the last time he had entered the fade for anything more than information, research or the urge to speak to spirits far too old to fear him now? Too long, the frivolity that the fade could provide had belonged to a much younger self who had seen nothing wasteful in constructing all that his imagination could bend itself to, It is a surprise and a relief that he can still do it without tying himself in knots about the details.

Music and a swell of voices all talking at once met his closed eyes, and he smiled when the scent of lilies and sweet spiced nuts mingled with the gentle clinking of crystal and high, falsetto laughter. He often suspected that they had all thought Orlais and its extravagant palace would disgust him, certainly he had been less than amused to see that his people fared no better here than they had anywhere else, and nothing could have tested his pride more than having himself announced to the Royal court as the Inquisitor's manservant. But Val Royeaux had come the closest to feeling like home, from the politics, the highly decorated sexual frustration, to the murderous plots and the dancing. It was still thousands of years away from what his home had really been like, but it had been almost close enough to engage him all the same.

He opened his eyes and for a moment all he could see was glittering shimmer of the crystal suspended from the chandeliers, proving that while the humans could not come close to matching the beauty of his old home, they worked small wonders with what they had. He glanced down from the edge of the balcony to the ballroom floor below, taking no note of the faces between the expensive clothing and gilded masks, they would be faces from their past and they were mere decoration, unworthy of his concentration.

She was easy to spot amidst the coordinated sea of movement below, the lone figure rooted to the spot, looking every inch the tourist she had wanted be as she stared at the gold ceiling, the heavily embroidered fabrics as they span and fluttered before her eyes, at her own self. He could hardly deny that he had somewhat indulged himself here, he would never get another chance. He had dressed her in Imperial silk, adorning both the bodice and her hair with strands of dragon bone and serpent stone. It bared her shoulders to him and clung to places he'd only sketched in his mind a thousand times, drawing his eyes over each defined curve. He may have stared at his own creation for longer than he thought, when he looked up again her eyes caught his while her arms folded and she tilted her head with an expression that declared she was quietly waiting for him to finish his private fantasies before he explained himself.

So he took a moment to appreciate how she glittered down there beneath the crystal and the moving figures before he descended, captured by the reflected light dancing and flickering over her tilted neck and shoulders. At some point he noted the obvious, though it still didn't reach him until he stepped onto the ballroom floor to meet her. She had two harms with which to fold in disapproval. Had that been him, or her. He quickly decided it didn't matter, or it simply didn't bear further investigation because that way lay guilt and with such precious little time it would be a waste.

"Really?"

She was indicating to the dress, the fabric shifting in ways that would make any resolve melt away, let alone his. For quite a long time his curiosity belonged firmly in the fade while learning from spirits or historic dreams, but with so much time to explore so many what-if's in his mind, the subject of how she might have looked at Val Royeaux had they not stuffed them all into those ridiculous uniforms, had obviously crossed his mind at some point. Therefore his only reply when he took her hand, was…

"Absoloutley"

She let him guide her, that fascinating and quick mind of hers didn't always connect with the coordination of her feet, and no amount of his imagination could make her dance any better. So she let him guide her as she had before, doing her best not to look down at her own two feet and giving the game away because she grinned every time she almost did.

"You know, I was almost certain you were too much of a gentleman to even think that I had anything beneath all that cotton and leather, apparently not"

"I _am_ a gentleman, the important word there is of course 'man'. Above all else I am male, and therefore well aware of the possibilities beneath any clothing you might posses"

This admittance was accompanied by his hand at the small of her back as he bent and tilted her towards the gilded floor.

"Very smooth, you've had far too much practice at this"

He didn't deny it, nor did he bother to elaborate for her, no dance in his past came close to comparing to this one, not when she was allowing him to guide her form, trusting him to make up for her lack of skill in this area by making them both look good. The tactile sensation of warm silk gliding beneath his hands when he touched briefly at her back or waist, was breathtaking. Touching her at all after all this time was a miracle on its own, that she would allow him to do so while her conscious moved alongside his in this place would have defied belief if he had given himself time to think about it. He did not want to think about it however, In fact thinking beyond the moment here was out of the question. There was little to no time to be spared between them now, there was no time to quell under the usual array of discipline, questions and rules that he had placed upon himself whenever he had been around her.

"I was afraid for you when we came to this place. So far you had successfully navigated your way to closing the breach, with the rebel mages as your allies no less. But Val Royeaux was deadly in it's own way and I thought that if you were to meet your downfall, it would be amongst their violent politics"

"It was an interesting night. I met harlequin assassins, a man tied to an empresses bed, three or four different people tried to bribe me, and I'm pretty sure Bull did something nefarious in a closet with some Duke's wife. Then you went and topped it all, you asked me to dance"

He moved her in a series of turns, his feet forcing hers to keep pace, faintly reminded in the lessons he had given her when all this started, it was safe to say she had taken to the staff work far more elegantly than she had dancing.

"I was feeling bold that night"

"You were wearing that gods awful hat, you _had_ to be bold, or at least drunk"

The music drew to began to draw to its conclusion and he drew her close, looking down into her uptilted eyes with his mouth pulled into an unfamiliar yet no less effective smirk.

"I have an unlimited control of this place my heart. Don't tempt me"

He drew her away from the ballroom floor, a hand threading her through the twittering throng, they truly did look like absurd birds of paradise in their feathers and jewels, little snatches of devious conversations slipping past their ears, culminating into one large murmuring entity that only quieted once they found an empty balcony and he closed the doors behind him. Here the sound of the revellers is not dimmed but cut off, as if the people inside had now ceased to exist without their presence. He kept his back to the doors for a moment while he watched her inspect the novelty of her precariously heeled boots, the picture both innocent and almost sweet, two descriptions that would have driven her to laughter if he ever chose to share them.

It appeared that now she thought about it, she did not approve of the boots, then again it had been the tireless work of many lectures from several advisors for her to wear anything on her feet at all most of the time. She would explain patiently that feeling the grass and the mud beneath her feet allowed her to feel more grounded when casting her magic, and they would just as patiently explain spike traps, rubble and the burning trails left behind by rage demons. She sat upon the ledge of the balcony and within half a minute had tangled both her hands in the complicated lacings that tightened the boots right up to her knee. He only watched her struggle for another half minute before he stepped forward and brushed her hands away as he half knelt. He didn't bother asking why she didn't simply exert her will to remove this construct of his imagination, most mortals could only accept the boundaries of this place so far until they began to rely upon the practical solutions.

She now watched him with a wary interest when he gripped an ankle and guided her foot to rest carefully on his thigh, and he could tell she was holding in a breath when he drew the hem of heavy silk up over her knee. His painters fingers made quick work of the lacing, the agile digits curving over her knee to cup her calf as he pulled away, squeezing lightly to feel the play of firm muscle that tensed there in response to the way he bent his head and brushed his lips over the side of her knee. He set her foot back to the marble with wordless reverence and now that held breath was gone, her expression strange, almost imperious unless you noticed the soft focus of her eyes and the way that she was forcing her breath to come slow and shallow.

He lifted the second booted foot and repeated the process with just as much nimble efficiency, his eyes tilted down the length of her leg as he pressed a more lingering kiss to the space above her knee at the inner thigh, watching the slow curl of bared toes for just the smallest sip of satisfaction. By the time he set her foot down again and sat up, she had composed herself enough to lift a haughty brow and her chin tilted in a fair approximation of any young noble girl daring her suitor to impress her further.

"I'm fairly sure that isn't taught in _any_ finishing school in Val Royeaux"

Another brief display of that unfamiliar smirk was all the warning he gave her. Quick as a whip his hands gripped her just above the knees, tugging her down and into his lap, a tensing in his arms preventing her knees from impacting the marble either side of him as he settled her there.

"No, it is not"

He wasn't thinking, in fact for the first time in an uncountable number of years, he was purposely doing his best not to think at all. Of course this meant that he was suddenly aware of something beyond the longing for her presence which has haunted him with relentless patience over the years. Now he is aware of is _want_ of her, acutely aware, enough to feel as though his mind has retreated to that younger self, the one who had been too hot blooded when it came to seeing what was happening around him, and just hot blooded enough to follow any instinct when it came to desire. She made him feel powerful in other ways, ways that had nothing to do with his magic or the fade, the way she looked at him with a quiet hunger that would always go unfulfilled, the way she worked to restrain her reactions because she had always seen his hesitance and would willingly go hungry just for the faintest of his affections. She was an extraordinary creature and over the years he had allowed himself to explore every one of her facets but this one, the line he had been unable to cross for fear of tripping and spilling all of his secrets.

She regards him with some amount of suspicion now, only half of it playful. This was unfamiliar to her, even now he could see the caution beyond her theatrical expression and he knew that she was waiting for that moment, that relentless clarifying moment when he would realise that this was wrong. Already he can see the inner workings of her mind scrambling to father materials to build another humorous wall with which to protect herself.

"Who are you, and what happened to the scruffy Elven apostate who ran a mile if i so much as flashed an ankle?"

He breathed his low chuckle in hot, soft lines along her throat, the true scent of pine sap, lyrium and hot copper pulled in and held there as his low murmur ghosted her skin and lifted tiny, delicate hairs on her skin.

"He realised there were no more secrets to find"

Her palms found either side of his face and his gaze was directed to her own, where all the theatrics melted away as she reared up on her knees enough to look down upon him, trying to see a lie or some trick she had not yet learned to expect. He had earned that look from her, along with the sickly guilt that it should ever come to be there in the first place. Perhaps she sensed some small part of that guilt in him, or maybe she saw whatever it was she had been seeking in his face, whatever the reason, the results were the same, her mouth fixing upon his with a desperate sound that thrust a fist in his belly. The shock of her initiation jerked up his spine to meet the fire of her mouth with an audible intake of breath that she stole back with a whimper and a scrape of teeth at his lower lip. His mouth was slack against hers to begin with, his shock now melting away under the starvation of her touch, he'd been too busy keeping his own desire under control all these years he hadn't even begun to account for the weight of hers. He doesn't deserve her hunger after all this time, nor the way her mouth pleads with his for reciprocation, but he feeds upon it anyway, like any night creature that would gorge on the sudden rush of blood on its tongue.

Fingers crept into the warm weight of living silk, sinking between the latticed strands of silverite and serpentsones that bound her hair, and her next panted exhale is stolen from her, swallowed whole by the monstrous hunger that clawed its way up his throat and forced his lips to _posses_ hers. Fingers tightened in hair his imagination had intricately styled, serpentstone clattering on the marble while delicate silver strands snapped like a spider's thread to tangle about his wrist in cool contrast to her fierce heat

The kiss was not just think of lips and warring tongues, it comprised of his whole body. It was in the hands that didn't roam but continued to pull her in closer despite there being no more room to breach between them and it was in the bend of her body as loomed over her, his mouth now seeking every secret behind her lips. He had been tasting her on his tongue for all these years and it had always came with the bitter tang of regret, but here she was more than memory, here she was fresh and vital and hot blooded as him, the clench of strong hands and stronger thighs urged him for more. When he did release her she gasped as if rescued from drowning and laid her throat bare in response to that singular tug from his grip in her hair.

It was impossible to deny her reality now, impossible not to let himself drift further from thought and slide smoothly into the state of being where it only mattered what he could touch and taste. Beneath that pine and lyrium scent is the mineral tone of old earth and woodsmoke, the scents of the wild where a creature like her should have been hard and savage, and in some ways she is, That scent gathered where her neck and shoulders met and he chased it with his tongue, the fluttering pulse beneath bitten sharply to force a blunted cry from her. It was this that he'd always been afraid of, that unstoppable slide between sense and simply feeling. Every time they had reached the boundaries of his control he had always pulled sharply back, unable to tell her that once he started to allow himself that abandonment, there would come a point of no return, where hunger would not be dragged back to it's den in chains. He felt one of her thighs clench beneath his hand and dared it's smooth glide upwards, thumb briefly brushing the intricate laced edging of small clothes, he really had been _very_ thorough in his editing choices.

When her hand suddenly snapped about the wrist buried beneath pooled silk, he surprised the both of them when he growled against her neck, the sound rolling from his chest both unnatural and exhilarating, he almost went right back to scalding her throat with the devious intentions of his tongue until she hit his shoulder.

"Solas, we are in the fade"

"I am aware"

Now that he had been given a taste of her hunger he was loathe to relinquish it and his mouth darted again for the heat of her skin, only to be denied as she leaned back with a curious smile that was equal parts taunting and flushed.

"I'm almost certain you mentioned something about this kind of activity attracting demons, given our track record I can guess that won't end well"

Her words came thickly and he delighted in causing every syllable to shiver, but she was also correct and officially distracting enough to make him forget even this very simple thing. But he didn't want to leave, by the time they woke again all the hesitance and recriminations would chase them down until sense returned and they understood everything that was wrong with this culmination of withheld desire. Now that she had voiced the concern he could feel the faint tingle at the back of his neck, and the sensation of something slowly turning its gaze their way became unignorable.

He drew her in closer and buried his face in the curve of her neck and shoulder, drawing in her scent even as the newly constructed world began to bleed from existence. He surrounded himself with her, drenching all his senses at once in the hope that when he woke, his mind retained the same capacity to let his body lead as it did here.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

He woke to find her wrapped around him tightly enough that for a second or two he couldn't comprehend which limbs were his own and which were hers. As she began to follow him into consciousness she stretched like a cat in the hands that had apparently been trying to merge her body with his and he felt a dull ache between his legs that reminded him of her state of being just moments ago. Her senses were always slow to assert themselves when she first woke and he now stole this moment to ply the sleepy warmth of her mouth with his, his tongue igniting all those electrical bursts of sensation owed only to the long denied. It did not take long for the kiss to turn into something more intense once the heat began to gather between them, and while the only thing in his ears was her quiet and laboured breath, he found no barriers of his own making when when he slipped a hand between her thighs to find soft cotton, dampened and providing little protection from the causal stroke of a finger.

She squirmed and inhaled sharply so he did it again, the lightest of strokes to guide her back to that wanton state which had almost taken them both in the fade and when he pulled the thin cotton away down the length of her legs he observed the way she squeezed her thighs together with a tiny shudder. She allowed this passive state of teasing only for so long, her body moving snake like enough beneath him that he could picture the way the muscles moved beneath her stretched and writhing flesh, and it wasn't long before imagination could no longer do his curiosity justice. She sat up and he was forced to do the same, if only to redirect his mouth to the thin sensitive flesh that hid her rapid pulse from teeth that tried to trap it there between them.

He felt her hand move between them as he pulled her tightly into his lap once more, heart the soft whisper leather and the link of a buckle as she sought to free herself of the heavy belt at her waist. He offered her no assistance despite his desire to see her bared before his eyes, preferring to make that hand shake at its work when he found one of her delicate ears with his mouth. She keened and tugged the belt free, he felt it sliding between them before it was tossed to one side and her hand was suddenly at his throat, a light squeeze and a tight roll of her hips against him sufficient enough to draw his attention back to her eyes. They were dark as tar in the shifting shadows and yet they glowed with so much growing need as she reared up on her knees and once more forced her gaze down onto his, as if she intended to devour him from the mouth down.

In the end it was the lightest brush of lips that touched upon his before she arched back and was suddenly naked before him in one long, glorious glide of heavy fabric sliding over flesh. His hunger did not die, but it did hold it's breath along with him as he took in the sight of her, lean and lightly muscled, her tanned skin already shining with a light film of sweat at her thighs and between her breasts. She looked slightly more cautious now, almost bordering on shyness, which only served to stir him further, that uncertainty in her finding some unguarded dark place in his mind in which to make the blood rush more quickly to his groin. His own tunic and vest were removed with little ceremony, the desire to feel her skin against his own temporarily derailing the need to explore every inch of the woman who had always been his. He felt no dismay for the audacity of his claim, knowing that he was also hers the first time he watched her place one of her trinkets at the the feet of the old stone wolf.

"And there it is, i believe i just felt my Intelligence drop sharply"

Her voice was faint and broke a little at the end while she stared with just as much attention to minute detail as he had. It was not an expression he was used to seeing in a woman, and it occurs to him that Talitha's generation had found their own liberation at some point while he had been sleeping. He likes that look more than he might have wanted to admit, and the part of him that was pride, purred with mutual satisfaction when she caught her lower lip in her teeth and slowly closed her eyes in a gesture of defeat.

The world seemed to slow down when he pulled her into his arms to collect as much of her natural warmth against him as was possible, pieces of it fell away when she kissed him again. The feel of her was indescribable, soft, supple flesh melting in his hands, her tongue a serpent's promise at his mouth and the hot want of her sex pressed tightly against him while she moved her hips in some secret rhythm that called for him to follow. He wanted and needed more, the remaining barrier of his breeches now an agonizing torment while she slowly rutted against him with limber movements of both hips and tongue. Yet he allowed a few more moments to bask in the warmth and safety of her love translated by a body that painted a hundred breathless pictures in his mind when she moved.

She was not ignorant to the desperate nature of his own body, pressed as tightly as they were she would feel every twitch and and involuntary movement of hips, and when her soft fingers became a wicked tease between them he caught her hear in his teeth with a warning growl that soothed itself into a groan when she tugged and fought with laces to finally free him to her hand. Fire rushed over him, all consuming and savage, a burning lance of pleasure that blazed past his nerve endings, leaving them scorched until he could feel his heartbeat throbbing through every part of his body. Slick, wet heat brushed over the tip of him and his hands caught her hips, keeping her in place, her disapproving whimper almost undoing him.

"Open your eyes"

She had been lost in her own world of sensation, and when she complied with his hoarse demand he could see the the half light of something wild there, a hint of some potential feral nature he had seen from time to time. With every ounce of control he could muster, he forced her descent to be a slow, sinking into gradual, tight heat while he watched those blue eyes roll upwards. Her body lurched slightly with her urge to move once he was as deeply inside her as was possible, and he made her whimper again when deceptively strong hands held her in place

He had forgotten the consuming nature of being held in such blissful, velvet heat, and the revelation of being inside _her_ after all this time only exacerbated every urge that continued to flash across his mind like tiny, malignant comets. Yet underneath all those fathomless possibilities was the simple understanding that he was finally connected to her in a way that had been denied him for too long. There were no explosions, the heavens did not open to strike them down for such political blasphemy, no curse was enacted and there were no eyes down here with the capacity to judge them, for once they were simply two lovers, their titles and the meanings behind them abandoned.

With the utmost of care he lifted her in his hands, enough to feel the tight grip of her sex cling almost possessively before a minute tilt of his hips buried him inside her again. He was gentle, almost cautious to begin with, not because he imagined he might hurt her, but the sounds she made were so fascinating as to hypnotise his body into merely wanting to re-create them. Her low somnolent echoes wrapped around him and added to the fierce pulse of his cock each time that possessive heat encompassed him entirely. His hands slipped away from her hips to slide up the length of her ribcage and feel the soft give of small breasts, and once she was free she immediately snatched a gut wrenching moan from unprepared lips when she rose up and descended with an agile roll of grinding hips.

He had always known that by the time she had arrived at the conclave, she was no stranger to another's body, and yet there had always been an 'untouched' quality about her despite this, a notion that she now seemed to be correcting for him. She did not quicken her pace, but her movements added an intensity that was not there before, it called to his own body, luring it to once more follow this dance she now led. Did he expect her to be passive? Was he perhaps under the impression that some of her sardonic strength might wilt slightly under his touch? Perhaps. Just enough for him to be caught unprepared as she reared and bent her body at angles which stretched the muscle of her belly where it writhed beneath tanned and sweat slick skin.

She moved and he moved with her, both caught in that perfect moment of unison, damp skin sliding against his own as he slowly burned from the inside out. In motion she was beautiful, caught in a completely natural state of open pleasure that he exploited with a quick and sudden thrust, assisted by hands once again coming to her hips, pulling her in sharply to meet the next jerk of hips that pulled a satisfying cry from her lips. Now he that he had stolen the control quite literally out from under her, he intended to play her body like an instrument. Quick shallow thrusts had her breathing hard and fast, he would take her just short of breathless before a sharper movement of his hips buried his cock back inside that natural furnace and she practically sang for him then.

He doesn't want to think about all the time they have wasted in the long years between them, but it's hard not to when he can compare this to the enforced solitude he has endured. The loneliness he had imposed upon himself had done much to obscure his compassion, but he understood it more now than ever before, because a moment like this had been the very root of his fear. Because she is good, and pure in a way that was undefinable. She always cared enough to cut herself with her _own_ compassion and she was relentless in her loyalty. To posses a woman like that, to embrace them knowing that he might never let her go, was enough to make even a man like him willing to give up anything.

She had done it before, with the simple curious light of her eyes in the aftermath of his spell and a single kiss.

But this time is different, things have gone too far, the war had gathered its own momentum and they are compelled to turn aside from each other once more, his only saving grace is that this time they would both walk away, both understanding.

It didn't stop him from swearing that he would never leave the warmth of her body as he bent and bore her to the ground beneath him, hips pinning her there encouraging her to squirm and push against him when he chased fingers lightly down her side. Nor did it stop him from embracing that feeling of both belonging and claiming, even though he knew that it would cause the scar of leaving her again to run all the deeper. He punished himself even as he took unbridled delight in her body and he knew it, because if he survived long enough to cast his memory back to this moment it would mean she was not and every second would be a new agony. They were reaching the kind of momentum that would not be interrupted by knowing the cost it would later bestow, like the clashing of their armies, this was now inevitable.

Her legs were a sudden vice about his waist and half her body arched away from the floor, stealing the moment of leverage to draw him into her sharply, the impact of wet flesh triggering the strong instinct to retaliate in kind when her rear settled back to the floor. Gods she was strong, pulling him in with every calculated thrust, her heels digging into the small of his back. They descended into that state of mutually chasing the conclusion of that building pleasure between them, almost mindless until her nails scored deep lines across his rear, ripping an inhuman snarl from his throat seconds before he buried his teeth into his shoulder and slammed himself against her body.

She screamed, it made something low and animal within him stretch its claws in satisfaction before all thought was snatched away by the sudden clench of her body, trapping him in unbearable tightness. He fought against the convulsing grip of her body, urged on by the wrenching build in his gut and the high, thin shriek that flew from her mouth like an arrow that rose into the vaulted ceiling of the cave. As soon as he began to think that he would never wish for this to end, that tight sensation in his abdomen suddenly loosened and he found himself gripping the curve of her shoulders to pull himself as deep as could possibly go. For several euphoric moments he was committed to a series of violent pulses that rippled through his body in searing aftershocks that had him panting heavily against her throat.

When the echoes had finally died, he was still wrapped within her feverish warmth, heavy limbed and mind sluggish with endorphins, the urge to move again temporarily lost for the time being. She also seemed disinclined to pull away, perhaps understanding the cost, even while lost in that haze of calm that settled upon spent bodies and over thinking minds. He found himself trying to memorize every aspect of her touch while the air cooled around them, knowing that eventually reality would sneak in somewhere between them, and the time for remembering would be overshadowed by that last goodbye.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

He lay there and watched her dress, dimly aware that he should be doing the same, but unable pull his gaze away from even this mundane took a long pull from the waterskin she'd dragged over along with clothes belonging to the both of them, while he watched her pull the belt about her waist and wondered how many years it would be before he could sample the smell of leather and not remember how it felt under his fingers. She caught him watching and smirked while making a shooing gesture towards his own pile of clothing, which he ignored in favour of snatching up her wrist to tug her down and steal her mouth once more. She melted against him as she had always done, and when her fingertips stroked his ear he felt his head spin while his heart begged him to stop before he earned himself further pain later on.

When he released her, she pressed her forehead to his and released a soft, shuddering sigh and he could taste their mutual pain in the air where it had been waiting.

"I love you. Nothing we do can change that. You could burn a thousand worlds and I would never be able to look you in the eye and tell you any different"

She almost slipped away from him before he grasped her shoulder with no earthly idea of what he meant to do, he only knew that this couldn't be it, not so soon. It wasn't fair. She made a pained sound at the back of her throat, it resonated with enough hurt to make his hands shake and his grip grow numb.

"Solas we have to….it'll be time soon"

"Stay"

That one word cost him deeply, it ripped into his pride to plead so blatantly, but he wasn't ready to walk away from her yet. When they next met he would be forced to extinguished the light that so captivated him. She would have been the one to take away the open wound that all this death had raked into his soul and he would have to destroy her.

"I...can't. Please, don't make it hurt more"

"Stay, dream with me one last time Vhenan"

This seemed to break something in her, that pained expression deepening, her eyes beginning to shine as she tried to cast them anywhere but at him. In equal parts he wanted to chase that pain to stop those impending tears, and drive the emotional blade in deeper until she succumbed to his pleas.

"Oh gods. I am _so sorry_ my love"

She finally managed to slip out of his grasp and when he made to reach for her again, his fingers barely brushed the hem of her robes before the world gave a sickening lurch that made his stomach clench hard.

"They wanted me to kill you, but you deserve better than that, and I was the only one who could ever get close to you and survive"

He tried to push himself to his feet, only to find his limbs now only had so much strength in them. For a full minute he doesn't quite comprehend anything beyond the the struggle of rolling himself onto his knees, but as his head hung between his planted hands to catch his suddenly shallow breaths, his eyes fell upon the waterskin and something plunged down the length of his spine, clearing his head enough for him to finally look at her, trying to narrow his focus to her tears as as understanding dawned.

"You…"

"It'll only last a few hours, long enough for me to reach it before you do. You can tear down the veil with what you have, but you need the other to secure the Evanuris. Without that, you wouldn't…"

She knew so much, about this place and about him. He would never tear down the veil without first destroying the reason for its existence. Every warning that he had ever silently given himself in those early days when he began to realise her danger to him, now came crashing down upon him. He should have seen it coming when he remembered why he had considered her dangerous in the first place, even in the midst of such consuming pleasure he should have seen the thought for the warning it was.

"This was all just...a distraction?"

"No!"

He wanted to call her a liar, to lash wounds into her flesh with his tongue, but even in his deepening daze he could hear the truth of it in her voice. She had come here to stop him, but things between them were never simple and all plans became precarious when they were near each other.

"This was….a better goodbye than either one of us deserves. When we next meet, one of us is going to die. Probably me. I can't turn you away from your choice, I can't stop the army you have gathered around you, and I can't save my friends"

Her lips trembled and he watched her forcibly swallow down a sob. He'd given up on trying to stand, his arms shook from the effort of holding himself up, whatever she had slipped into the water was powerful enough to even distort his focus on magic.

"But i can bloody well try and save you from yourself. Because I understand now, enough to forgive you"

The grinding of stone distorted his snarl of incredulity. She was about to subvert all that he had worked for and she had the audacity to forgive him? Yet even as this thought passed through his mind, the memory of all he had done to her thus far came flooding towards him in a rush, and he knew that if nothing else, he deserved this most insidious of defeats, even if it was only for the look on her face when he had broken her heart in Crestwood. His diminishing vision had now reduced her to a mere shape now, but he could hear her moving, picking up her pack and staff.

"I never really forgave you for how you left me in that cave. I thought i would never understand how you could do that….to me. But there was a moment, just a fleeting second when we were joined. I looked at you and saw everything I ever wanted.."

Words were lost to him now, his tongue too heavy and dry in his mouth. As the stone blocks began to orientate themselves once more, she backed into the newly made doorway, and he could only watch with exhausted dismay, his arms finally giving out from under him, his cheek pressed to the cold rock floor.

"I looked at you, and I was almost willing to stand at your side and watch my own world burn. To trade everything, for you. It scared me, badly enough to betray the last beautiful thing I will ever know"

Even drug addled and prone the irony of this managed to reached him and he might have laughed bitterly if it didn't fill him with a deep well of sorrow for the both of them. It wasn't fair that they had ever met, two people who were only destined to hate each other between the briefest moments of comfort. It wasn't right that they had connected so strongly, the odds of such were slight enough that even he might have suspected divine intervention had he not known better. And it was cruel that it had to end this way, with another betrayal that ripped at the heart of both of them.

He watched her step through the temporary doorway, her features becoming even more indistinct. He heard her say something else, but sound had now gained a muffled underwater quality and the grinding of stone made them indecipherable. His throat stung with impotent words, he wanted to scream, curse, beg her to stay, promise her death and name her his heart one last time. But there was only the sound of heavy stone sliding into place, turning the dimness of his world suddenly black. He lay there, feeling his consciousness melting away, falling forward into that black. His last thought was to wonder what her final words had been.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

 _She eyes the heavy stick with a long sigh which does nothing to disturb the Qunari's grin, he has the chargers lining the fencing, caging her in, even though they both know not a one of them would really try to bar her way. Even in this 'forced' event of solidarity, they see her both fragile and ready to explode, not understanding that it really isn't all that complicated or dangerous. The state of total emotional numbness that she has carried with her from the Crossroads, is actually quite calming. Her stomach no longer twisted in knots of barbed wire, her eyes were no longer blurred with grief and she could say his name in more than just a whisper. Now she looked down at the offered stick and rolled her eyes._

" _Bull, while I appreciate the gesture, I am not so desperately unhappy that I want to beat you again. Last time you were making some awfully...satisfied noises for a man being hit by a length of hardwood"_

" _Hey I won't lie boss, it was an experience I'll hold dear to my heart, but you're not hitting me today"_

 _Before she can ask he makes a grand gesture to the sheet covering something bulky at the other end of the small training area. There is a certain sensation expectation and the sound of a lot of people trying not to giggle all at once and suddenly it doesn't matter what's under the sheet. Whether it makes her laugh or cry they cared enough to make children of themselves just to get a rise out of her. Crem was clearly biting the inside of his cheeks as he performed a flourished bow and whipped the sheet away._

 _She blinked at the revealed object standing proudly before a ring of Bull's Chargers, all of them grinning fit to burst._

" _It's a training dummy"_

" _Yep"_

 _Someone snorted and then immediately yelped in pain as someone else smacked them into silence._

" _It's wearing a robe, and…..just guessing here, the broom is a staff?"_

" _Sure is. Good eye there boss"_

 _She stands there for a few moments, cocking her head from side to side as she plays along and makes a show of looking at their creation from every angle._

" _Ok, so I might be somewhat confused by the melon"_

 _Bull glances at the dummy and sighs before making a twirling motion with his finger, pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering when Crem finally jumped and swivelled her constructed foe's 'head' around._

" _Oh. It has a face...and a pair of parsnip ears. That's...sweet"_

 _For a moment there is a bitter note to this absurd but well meaning gesture. They laugh because it made it easier to understand that their next enemy will be a friend, and they have created this effigy perhaps because they simply needed to know. Could she overcome this state of forced ambivalence, would she be able to give the orders, and if it ever came to it, could she do everything in her power to stop this new oncoming end, even if it meant destroying the one she loved?_

 _They laugh and she loves them for ir, but they have come here to see._

 _Can she?_

 _Will she?_

 __ **o0O0o~~**

The door clicked shut behind him, and for the sake of mercy, the rest of the world disappeared behind it. His legs moved stiff as corpses, forcing him to walk just that little bit further, forcing him to stand and bear the weight. But the weight was too heavy and he was choking on it. He now saw it as an entity, a vicious creature that would crawl down his throat and suffocate him with its poison. He pressed the heel of one hand hard to his forehead, physically attempting to push away the vivid nature of his own expansive imagination. That same imagination that even now presented him with crystal clear memories that sliced through his thoughts in rapid succession.

 _...The ground shakes with their march as they sing of a dawn that would never come for them. He wonders if she sings with them, or does she still not understand why they sing for her?..._

He staggered and struck out a hand, fingers clawing about the antlers of a bronzed halla for support as graveyard worms squirmed through his mind and whispered his crimes.

…. _she is determined, her rage channeling into her magic, and with each friend that falls, ten more of his people die, whether by her lightning or her blade, it does not matter,_ _ **they**_ _do not matter, and he feels something cold touch him when he realises the corruption of her compassion will be his final crime…_

Something barbed twisted in his heart and he pushed himself away from the statue, staggering a few more steps into the torch lit chamber before finally falling to his knees. The agony finally translated itself with a cry like a wounded animal, his blurred vision doubling and then tripling as the first tears fell.

…. _She almost makes it, barely a few more steps and he would be in range of her blade, close enough to touch. But he has earned his own loyalty, and after watching the slaughter of their own, his guards are falling upon her like a pack of wolves…_

He remembered the precise angle of her grin when he had first presumed to question her habit of leaving her gifts to the old stone wolf, and dust shivered across the ground. In his head she turned to him, for once utterly speechless because he'd asked her to dance, and when he remembers the way she kept tripping over her own feet and laughing, the walls began to shake. His own sympathetic magic was overflowing, gathering at dangerous levels that now filled the air with the sharp smell of burnt tin. He is blind to it all, assaulted by his own memories until he clawed at his own scalp with a helpless sob, wanting to reach in and yank them out before their weight crushed his bones to powder.

 _...they are cheering, the battle is won, as they have always known it would be. Some starts to sing, an old song of rebellion that quickly spreads among them until it is a roar. He watches their celebration and understands it, and yet he is still but a breath away from burning them all. They have mounted her head atop one of the banners that now tours the battlefield, even when it is out of sight he can hear the wave of cheers as it passes…._

The grief shook him like a fly bitten horse, unmanning his dignity and taking his pride as he let it take him. She was gone, and it felt as though the next vital breath had been stolen from him. She had occupied so little of his long life, and yet her passing was opening up a void in him, sucking away all other thoughts but the ones that would hurt the most, making room for new mental agonies that filled him until he thought he would slide out of his own skin.

… _..he saw her sleeping face, lit green by the mark that pulsed on her hand as he watched from the other side of the bars…._

 _...he told her that she was beautiful and for a terrifying instant her smile is enough to make him doubt…_

 _...she sits upon that ridiculous throne surrounded by the noble elite, and he can see she's trying very hard not to laugh while the chieftain explains the goats…_

 _..her laughter.._

 _...the devils that dance in her eyes when he's still trying to get the joke…_

 _..her last words, now lost to him forever.._

The halla topples, falling heavily on its side, and from beneath him, cracks crawl across the marble, racing to the walls where they spread like webs, shards of marble and dust falling like rain. When his voice is not equipped to articulate, his magic would speak for him. The world would be filled with too many years without her existence to give him even distant comfort, but he is not yet done, and even when he is certain that the pain will finally and blessedly kill him, he is also certain that there will be a point when he would have to lift his head and face what was before him.

For now however, he succumbed, and as the small tower began to crumble around him, nobody flies to the side of their new found leader in comfort or consolation. None of them know what they had truly helped to do today.

Besides, what mortal would dare to disturb a god who weeps?


	3. Chapter 3

The pattern of the rain had not changed in the last two weeks, its steady patter against the windows had formed into an almost comforting white noise, much like crackle of the fire and the the distant sound of the stables in the courtyard. Outside, Skyhold was as busy now as it had been back when the Inquisition had still held it, only now the forges had turned to making farming equipment and the songs in the tavern spoke his name with an almost zealous tone that worried him. While he had mostly secluded himself in the main tower room, the people below had picked the other rooms clean of all things that could be considered of use or value, the rest was burned and he allowed them to do so with no malice in him. It was hard enough to walk through her memories, he had no desire to sift through the materialistic bones left behind by the rest of them.

He did at first wonder if his choice to stay in her old room might not have been an incredibly unsubtle attempt at self torture, but he'd had the bed linens that still carried her scent burned and the walls were now lined with rows of of shelves and tables stacked with books, maps, and an intricate alchemy kit that steamed quietly in one corner and of course, an eluvian. This last object remained shrouded and mostly unused, yet even seeing its shape reminded him that, although this room had once been _her_ sanctuary, it had first been his. Knowing this did not make the sting of being here any less, but it did make it easier to be practical about it.

He needed the solitude the tower room provided.

He had marked himself for the path of death, never meaning to survive the ritual he was indebted to perform, the people he had gathered would have gone on to lead themselves, but much like the time before, his plans have gone horribly wrong and they were all still looking to him. He could not abandon them, Thedas still waited with bated breath to see what the notorious Fen'Harel did next, without the threat of the dread wolf, those that now stood beside him would be slaughtered as a warning and example to future uprisings. While the second orb remained out of his reach he was trapped, and so were they. With no way to go forward or back until his foci was recovered, they had needed a place to fortify themselves. The people needed food, medicines, smiths and carpenters along with hundreds of little things that made up life after war. Though he had delegated the overseeing of most tasks, they all still looked to him and their regard was relentless, they were _his_ people now, whether he wished it to be true or not.

They were his people and yet there were times when he hated them all. In those moments the current inhabitants of skyhold seemed like some great single entity whose needs were never met for very long, and whose problems were unending. The isolation of the tower room was his saving grace, a place where none were permitted, a place to be free of their fervent gazes, and a place where his grief could be borne in relative peace.

He had spent the morning going over reports about the search in the lower parts of the stronghold, they had found nothing, much as he suspected, never truly believing she would have hidden the foci anywhere that might have endangered others should he have come looking for it. The reports were dull and dry and his mind had started to very slowly drift back to the muffled echo that had been her last words, that comforting flow of white noise lulling him into a doze. The soft footsteps on the large rug behind him might have easily been missed, but the footsteps were an unfamiliar resonance in the lull and offered an opposing note to the white noise.

He was instantly alert, and yet could not find it in himself to panic, much of what would have allowed him to make an impassioned response had been buried under several layers of grief and pragmatism. He turned slowly in his chair, mindful of its slow creak as the quality of silence grew thicker and gained an expectant air. His intruder held the knife out in front of them, the gesture making the blade more of a shield than a weapon, it's tip shaking along with the hand that gripped it with white knuckles. Solas stared back at wide eyes that didn't dare to blink, and a mouth set in a thin, trembling line that spoke of reluctant determination attempting to overcome fear.

"You are not going to kill me child"

The boy jumped as if stung and both hands now gripped the knife while his breath became an audible series of pants. The knife was no slender thing, it had come from the kitchens and looked as though its most common use was as a butchers tool. He could see those frightened eyes now trying to twitch towards the stairs. Whether he sought a place of escape or feared the arrival of guards was unclear, either way it seemed as though he didn't dare take his gaze from the monster that remained patiently in his chair beside a desk strewn with papers.

"You must have expended some amount of guile to get in here, now you hesitate. It is never as easy as it seems is it?"

He spoke quietly and with open curiosity, though he could see that even a whisper would have filled this one's limbs with dread. The boy seemed little older than twelve, scrawny and ill kempt, those frightened eyes feverish and twitching with the effort to keep them and the blade trained upon the mage.

"Y-you're a liar!"

The words seemed to tumble from the boys mouth all at once and he took one lunging step forward before courage rooted his feet once more. Solas remained still, his body betraying no flinch in response to the sudden movement, he simply waited for that laboured breath to once again slow while the rain continued its monotonous pattern against the windows. Now the boy looked confused, as though he had expected a response to his accusation, perhaps a denial or anger, the impassive expression of calm appeared to unnerve him and now he did look to the stairs, only to whip his head around again quickly and redouble his grip on the knife's handle"

"They all think you're going to make this world better, but you're a liar. I heard them, the Commander and... _her_..they said…"

The boy now struggled with the conclusion to his sentence, the corners of his mouth dipping in a brief grimace before he shook his head and raised the blade just that little higher, the tip now pointing to Solas' throat, though it still remained a good two feet away.

" They said you would make this world burn, you'll make the demons come because it's the only way you can...and none of them know"

For Solas, a few things began to slide into place, it was as though he had been looking at one of those tile puzzles for the last minute or so, carefully sliding the pieces around the board until an important part of the picture was revealed. He showed no dismay for the exposure to his secret, though he did sit forward in his chair as if to better inspect the boy. The recognition was dim, the boy had one of those faces that would make him invisible within a small keep, another refugee who's grubby face and hopeful eyes had never been enough to be truly distinctive.

"You were here with the Inquisition. Have you come to avenge them, or perhaps your parents?"

Those young eyes narrowed and the boy braved another two steps forward, but the knife was beginning to waver again, holding the knife up like that was beginning to take its toll on the young elf's endurance.

"Mother died in Haven, weren't nobody's fault but the Templars. But you killed the rest of them, and now there's no one here who would believe, s-so I have to do it"

But the knife came no closer and the effort of closing in on that last step seemed momentarily too monumental for the boy whose arms began to shake with the effort of keeping the knife between them. Once again Solas did not waste time with denials, he supposed that the boy had been left behind as those who had not been able to fight had fled the stronghold long before Fen'Harel and his people came. As an elf the boy would have easily blended in, another face in a sea of faces, one more child underfoot, Invisible. Only now did he lower his gaze briefly to the belt about the boy's scant waist, it hung heavily to one side with the weight of a large set of heavy looking keys.

"You have no desire to kill, put the knife down child. Stay with us, this could still be your home"

It seemed to be the catalyst the boy was waiting for, an unexpected push that gave him the courage to take that final step, causing the blades tip to kiss his throat.

"My names Kester...and she was my friend. I was alone and everyone was too busy to notice. But _she_ took me to the stables….and she said that I was to be in charge of Salshira. I was scared at first, he was so big but she...s-she.."

Now he watched with awful fascination as the boys eyes welled and began to overflow, his voice shaking with the effort not to allow that first whooping sob that would end all composure entirely. He visibly fought it, his face passing through a series of strained expressions while the knife dimpled the flesh of his throat.

"..she showed me how to talk to him, and she always said that we were all just family with extra bits because the world was just strange like that"

That ugly sound of grief finally overcame the boy after this, as though his breath had been suddenly snatched away. The knife first slowly lowered and then fell from hands that seemed to suddenly want nothing more to do with it. A child often couldn't help but let their grief be heard, perhaps it was simply so large a feeling that a young mind could not overcome its natural reactions. For a split second, Solas almost envies him this. The boy now seemed so stricken that he had even forgotten to be afraid, not seeming to notice when Solas finally stood up from his chair, and when he was gently led to another chair by the fire, he merely allowed his feet to be guided there.

He saw the boy more clearly now. An excited face leaning over a stable door, glowing with pride as he showed how he had taught the Hart to bow over one foreleg. Another face in a sea of faces, but she had known them all.

While those emphatic tears began to wind themselves down to shuddering sobs he set a small brass kettle over the fire and brewed a selection of herbs. By the time the sobs ebbed into an occasional sniffling whimper, he pushed a small steaming mug into the boys hands and took the armchair opposite. Minutes ticked by with no sound but the fire and the rain. The boy looked hesitantly at the mixture in his cup, but seemed to come to the conclusion that it was safe. Solas let the silence spin out, it allowed him to correct the precarious balance between his own grief and the need to remain in control. The boy had upset that balance more than he could have guessed. It was not the discovery of his lie that disturbed him. His people had taken the Inquisitor and fashioned her into a monster, because without an identifiable enemy war seemed too close to murder. After her death they had celebrated and he had watched, silent and still as stone so as not to overbalance that emotional scale, lest it tipped to the rage that came close to overspilling on its own. It had never occurred to him that there would be a person left in Skyhold who mourned her as he did.

"I don't understand. You killed her, but….those men. They put those heads on the walls, I saw them, i saw the Commander, the lady Seeker and….and _her_ "

The boy almost looked on the verge of uncontrollable tears again, but this time he gulped it down and now his expression was half curious and half accusing.

"You were angry. You had the men hung, you told them all that we weren't going to be savages, even when you're going to do worse."

For once he is taken by surprise, and the boy immediately looked sorry he had spoken when eyes briefly flared with that promise of baleful light, but in the next breath that stone mask was back in place and the waiting silence that the boy now seems to need to fill, has settled back down between them.

"I heard the Seeker say you loved her. That doesn't make sense"

"I did love her, to the very end"

He stood and plucked the empty cup from the boy's hand, setting it aside on a cluttered table, his hands now distracting themselves with tidying the scraps of paper and half finished experiments, while the cold hand of pragmatism lay its clammy fingers on the back of his neck and bid him to remember all that was at stake. Behind him the boy appeared to be wrestling with a thought, and as Solas crossed the room to replace an armful of books to their shelves, the boy looked at his hands and wrestled with his own moral understanding.

"That's….stupid. If you loved her why would you kill her?"

"Because sometimes duty demands that we do terrible things"

Gentle hands slid around the top of the chair, one cupping the boy's chin, the other resting atop his head. The boy barely had time to gasp before both hands adjusted their positions and a sharp movement wrenched his head to an odd angle with a sickening crack.

Solas grasped the boy under his arms before he could slither bonelessly from the chair, propping him up carefully before he crossed the room again to tug the cover from the eluvian. A single touch brought the mirror to life, the reflection beyond presenting an overgrown courtyard with several flowerbeds that had long since been overrun by ivy and embrium. With meticulous care he then slid his arms beneath the boy that had been Kester, still waiting for the wave of revulsion and guilt to roll over him, their conspicuous absence perhaps more unnerving to him than the child's death. On the other side of the eluvian he set the boy down next to one of the flowerbeds and picked up a spade from a rotting rack of rusted gardening tools.

For the next two hours he dug, going deeper than he needed to because he was drawing out the time before he had to openly admit to himself that the boy's death still roused nothing in him but the understanding that some things had to remain a secret if everything he had done was to ever have meaning. The boy might have kept quiet for a while, perhaps he may never have spoken at all, but at the thought of that smallest chance that he _could_ eventually spill the truth, part of him had silently stepped aside in order for him to decide that the boy was a problem to be removed.

Solitude had allowed him to grieve in peace and balance his mind enough to do the job ahead of him, but it was an addictive poison, one that he had willingly imbibed rather than risk his precarious state of mind. The guilt did not reach him in any sense other than his understanding that he _should_ feel guilt, and this was enough for him to realise that it wasn't enough just to simply keep moving forward, merely being able to function would not hold his people together for long.

When he eventually lay the boy down in the hole with as much respect as was due, he wondered what she would have thought of him now, would her hate have finally grown to overshadow the love? As he climbed out of the hole and began to laboriously fill it, his mind drifted enough for his subconscious to provide his answer, and memory was cruel enough to compliment it in her voice, right down to that faint tone of amusement.

" _Keep going as you are are you will hate yourself more than I ever could my love"_

He would never know if that was what she truly would have said, just as he would never know if she had really meant to kill him as she charged across the battlefield full of vengeance and lightning. He would never hear those last words, and he would never see the horror in her eyes while he filled in the boy's grave. She was gone, but he was not and neither were the thousands that were now reliant upon his success. He could not push the memory of her aside forcibly, nor could he prevent the occasional ghost whispering in his ear, but if he did not find a better way to find balance beyond that stone mask, sooner or later he would devolve into the sort of man he would have deemed too dangerous to lead.

Sooner or later he would become the kind of man to see logic and necessity in every terrible deed.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

The event was not the grand affair to which the Inquisition had been invited to like some wild card amongst Orlais political hand, but it was no less ostentatious in its execution. The flawless face of the empire would be maintained regardless of the occasion because all parts of the grand game had to be played, from the order of introduction through the gilded doors into the ballroom, right down to the vintage of wine set upon the banquet tables. Every official event was a small masterpiece in its own right, orchestrated like a battleground, and this analogy ran truer than any other, men and women might bleed on charnel fields with nameless enemies, but the true wars were often delicately fought within walls such as these by men and women who saw only numbers and the cost of their losses.

Tonight's occasion masks its true intentions, occasionally it did not do to announce a certain type of gathering, better to hide it amongst the glamour of the palace and its people, nobles hiding amongst nobles, some with a more specific purpose than frivolity. They will join the dancing, gorge upon the fine food and perhaps even enjoy themselves for a time, until eventually those important men and women slipped away to small rooms where they decided which way their part of the world would turn this time. The elements and execution of tonight's celebrations are of course within the calloused and well worn hands of several elven servants, the true cogs behind the mechanism of another night to remember for Orlais elite. In the ballroom they are a balletic performance of moving drinks and delicate morsels of food, silver trays in hand, mostly seen as much a part of the decor as the furniture aside from the few wandering eyes that might have had enough of those drinks to be curious. In the kitchens, grim faces preside over the execution and perfection of everything before it is allowed to be taken through to the hall.

There was more than one job for every pair of hands, yet one pair remained idled in the half dark of a mostly forgotten supply closet.

The young man sat upon an old crate, his chin cradled in both hands while he resolutely watched the flame of a candle set in a cracked saucer before him. There was an air of infinite patience surrounding the young man, though his wait was nearly done, already the constant din of shouted orders and moving cutlery was starting to lessen as footsteps passed his unobtrusive hiding place and moved towards the balcony overlooking the gardens where they would indulge in their own small celebration of pilfered wine and a few delicacies that would not be missed from the feast below. Only when the last of those footsteps die does he move away from the crate and the candle that now began to dance erratically as a cool draft disturbed the close air of the closet. He opened the door and peered out, relieved to see the hallway deserted and when he looked back over his shoulder at the dim shape of the eluvian he was all the more relieved when it began to shimmer and pulse with a blue light that threw momentary and ghastly shadows over his face.

Solas stepped through into the cramped space and found himself facing a pair of wide and reverent eyes, their owner momentarily too stricken to even move. It was a look that was now common enough for him to loathe, but he was starting to understand there was little he could do about this without unbalancing their loyalty. He tilted his head in silent question and the young man finally gathered himself to return an equally silent nod before he stepped out of the small dark room, his eyes now trying to look everywhere at once. Solas stepped out from the brief darkness, and several sombre figures followed behind, the last of them, a silver haired man in his fifties. closed the closet door behind them, making a beckoning gesture to the young man who tossed them a heavy ring of marked keys. With their way out secured the group of eight or nine moved as a single unit in perfect silence, following the back of the young man who led them to the door that separated the servants quarters from the main part of the palace. Here Solas lay a hand on the young elf's shoulders while nodding to a thin woman who began to removed her cloak to reveal the standard servant's garb beneath.

"Your part is done, join the rest of them above the gardens, keep them there as long as you can, Lanai will assist you"

At this the boy looked briefly hesitant, glancing between Solas and the grim looking woman. Solas smiled gently in return and shook his head.

"None of them will be harmed Emmon, but they must not interfere"

The young man lost that slightly reverent look and peered at Solas as if perhaps trying to detect a lie, but he nodded again and peeled off from the small group along with kitchen maid in disguise. As soon as they had left there was complete silence once more as the silver haired man stepped up front and unlocked the connecting door.

As they filed into the statue lined hallway, a young elven maid stepped through the doors connecting to the garden and most of the small group froze, but upon seeing them she merely nodded and set down her tray to pull a single key from her apron, quietly closing and locking the door behind her. Without another word she picked up her tray and swept past them towards the kitchens, not sparing them a glance as they moved on to the atrium. Solas had been warned of the guards that would be stationed here and now with the briefest of signals, two of their number seemed to slide out of focus before disappearing entirely.

On either side of the closed ballroom doors, two guards were propped in the stance of perpetual boredom, ignorant of silent cat like feet that drew closer, their minds having long drifted off to somewhere infinitely more interesting than the back of a closed door. Both men suddenly felt the weight of another upon their backs before their shouts of warning are cut off by strong arms constricting vital blood flow. Through a rapidly dimming world they see shapes pour in from the side door. Two more broke off from the group to catch the suddenly boneless weight of the armoured, and now unconscious men. Solas watched as they were carefully carried down the stairs to be placed in one of the side corridors, he had been determined that there be as little bloodshed as possible, and so far his wishes had been met, whether this state of play remained intact however, was entirely up to the people in the ballroom.

With the guardsmen safely deposited down in the atrium, it was now time to seal off the staircase. Though their intention has been to move about the palace as quietly as possible until the last minute, Solas wanted no chance of an enemy being at their backs should one curious person note anything out of place. An austere looking woman still bearing the markings of her clan set hands upon the carved stair rails, she had refused the offer to remove her Vallaslin, yet her loyalty has so far remained unshaken. A surge of magic flared briefly, the rails creaking beneath her gnarled but steady hands, the wood bulging and warping as she tapped into the memory of what it had once been before it had been cut down and fashioned into a new shape. Thick branches grew from beneath her touch, curling about each other like a nest of snakes that slowly encompassed the stairway, cutting the entrance off for now. Solas took the old woman's place when she was done, his eyes flaring with that brief blue fire, his magic now crawling over the branches, fortifying wood into stone.

A steady look of determination began to move through the group and Solas felt that his choices had been agreeable, as well as loyalty the men and women with him possessed steady hands and clear heads and he would need all of those things combined to pull this off with the minimum of blood. He had a point to make here and a slaughter would only undermine the message.

When the ballroom doors burst open they spread out immediately, quickly splitting along either side of the upper balcony before the first gasp could ignite the flashfire of murmurs and screams could be heard over the music below. The closest guards were thrown back by mind blasts, landing in tangled heaps of armoured limbs, their comrades already running towards them despite the heavy armour, only to be forced back as groups of more elves emerged from the balconies they had scaled, bows drawn taut enough to indicate that a single wrong sneeze would invite a hail of arrows. This second wave had been vital in order to quickly gain control of the room, and like the mages their hands were steady. Down upon the dance floor there were several crashes as some of the well placed 'servants' discarded their trays to draw weapons from beneath tables and the recesses of their clothing.

Only when the uproar began to ebb did he descend the stairs, that baleful light coming to life in his eyes once again. He took his time, let them all get a good look at the creature that up until now, had only existed in hushed whispers, though now he had eyes for only one figure who now stood alone, the small crowd of dancers having been ushered either side of the ballroom by the grim looking servants and their even grimmer looking tools, most of which had come from the kitchens and garden, though the meat hooks, knives and sickles looked no less deadly despite their usual uses. To give the Empress her due, she watched his approach with as much dignity and poise as she had the last time he had seen her, and if she feared for her life she hid it extremely well. When he was but a few feet away he pulled something from the recesses of his furred mantel and tossed it to the floor between them. The dented helm rolled far enough to almost touch the hem of Celines skirts, it's blood soaked plumage leaving a faint dark trail in its wake.

"It appears that you wanted to send us a message Empress, and now you have my undivided attention."

He could credit the woman to be almost as skilled as himself when it came to not allowing her face to betray her thoughts, she glanced down at the helm briefly before stepping around it to close some of the distance between them. Solas kept his eyes on her, trusting his people to keep things under control.

"The Inquisition were our allies, you did not expect consequences for their slaughter? The Inquisitor herself stood between me and my would be assassin, retaliation was inevitable"

He allowed an indulgent smile now, if nothing else he appreciated her talent as well as her capacity for boldness. She added just a grain of truth to her elaborate lie which of course made it sound all the more authentic, but Solas had been playing the grand game long before it had been given a name, and he saw the truth, even beneath the well places shrouding of her words.

"I have no doubt you held the Inquisitor with some amount of regard. But the Inquisition itself was always a delicate problem for you so long as it remained independent. You could not renounce your ties with them and they would not share their plans with you, that made them dangerous to you, and several important people with deep pockets"

He knew his people would now be carefully watching the faces of the men and women they now held in check, they were not simply here to play the part of 'muscle', in the eight months since they had taken over Skyhold he had identified those of them that had the capacity to learn. Now several highly trained eyes would be seeking out those faces that carried the most guilt or fear, those little tells in every character that would mark them as the ones to watch.

"Now you sit in expensive rooms and collectively wonder if we are not just as dangerous, sending a battalion to our gates just to see what we will do in return"

She remained as outwardly calm as always, yet Solas had to wonder if perhaps she were not sweating beneath her elaborate gown, typically this was not how the 'game' was meant to be played, the rules all but demanded that every action be performed beneath a veil of secrecy, yet she was not in the position to refuse to answer, and if she were to keep any dignity she would have to respond.

"The Inquisition saw you and your people as an enemy, you seek to turn our people against us"

He smiled, it was not a particularly pleasant gesture, he was not particularly amused. It was moments like this when he privately felt the sudden rush of righteousness, because it was the same old story, it was simply wearing a new costume in a new time. For one small instant he briefly considered the idea that this world _deserved_ to burn, if only to save it from its own maddening habit of repeating doomed history.

"That is what truly frightens you all isn't it. For hundreds of years these people have kept your homes, fed you, clothed you, cleaned up after your messes and suffered every indignity visited upon them simply because that was the order of things. They were silent, invisible when you wanted them to be, but now you see them, and now you tremble as you imagine your own tally of thoughtless deeds coming back to you demanding reparations in blood because that is what _you_ would do"

For once it seemed that the Empress' famed silver tongue had failed her, though he had no doubt that the woman has filed through a dozen responses in the time it takes to draw a breath, yet none of them seem appropriate enough to refute his rather bald revelation of the truth. Perhaps she had lived in lies and illusions for so long that the real truth often struck like a whip, temporarily disabling that constant state of mind that made playing the 'game' as easy as breathing. He nodded to her silence as if he expected as much and forgave her for it before he went on, now speaking to the room at large.

"You fear us, perhaps you should. Or perhaps you should fear your own selves. For almost a year we have remained within our borders and we have invited no violence, the people that come to Skyhold do so of their own free will. You all wonder what it is we plan to do next, that depends entirely upon you"

From beyond the closed ballroom doors he could hear the faint sounds of steel impatiently striking stone, the improvised barrier would hold for a good long time, but he would not rely upon it entirely, the Inquisitor had long ago proven that there was always more than one way to move about the palace. Now Celine finally found her voice again, though this time she could not quite manage that frigid air of calm, he had shaken her confidence just by being here.

"You expect us to believe you seek only peace, that the stories of Fen'Harel are mere falsehoods, that you do not intend to lead our people into a revolt?"

He turned far more quickly than should have been allowed, his impatience with the woman sparking to a flash of brief rage. The bright baleful fire of his eyes now inches from Celines, the echo of his snarl climbing the high ceilings. There were shrieks and whimpers and Solas could hear the rapid backpedal of feet behind him as several people sought to meld themselves with the walls.

"I expect you to understand that the next time you send soldiers to our door, my retribution will not be visited upon the men and women you stand in front of you like so many shields, but on the hands that move the pieces over the board"

He forced himself to take a step back, pulling back the sliver of control he had allowed to slip free, though once more he is forcibly reminded of how easy it would be to simply become the creature they all wanted him to be. Yet he only has to remember the loyal eyes that were upon him now, they would follow where he led, which meant he did not have the luxury to indulge in his occasional desire to simply smash the whole 'game' to pieces in one violent swoop.

"Spread the word Empress, from the king of Ferelden to the merchant princes of Antiva, do not bring your swords to our gates, for you have too much to lose and i am well known for drastic measures when pushed into a corner"

The rush of magic was felt by everyone, too strong to be ignored even by the least magically inclined as it lifted the hairs on the back of their necks and raised gooseflesh over their arms. A scream from the upper balcony was joined by another, then another, until a rising tide of panic swept over the revellers as pale shapes emerged from every corner of the hall, slipping through walls, some even crawling across the floor, dragging the ruin of their legs behind them. The irony of the situation was that the spell merely plucked such visions from their memory. Some of the people here were responsible for sending many men and women out to die in their name, now they gathered like private illusions, broken soldiers, inhumed rivals and the slack eyes of commoners caught in the crossfire. He forced them to confront their own capacity to play the monster as he moved among those pale shapes towards the back of the hall where his people now gathered, some looking upon the display with pitiless eyes, some merely awed. Behind him, the armed servants dropped their weapons and followed him through the fog of grotesque shapes to join their brethren

All of them understood that this move might still result in war if the humans could not learn to swallow their pride, but doing nothing would have almost assured their enemies continuous attacks.

"Stop this!"

He turned at the bottom of the stairs and looked back to see the larger portion of the illusions now clustering around the Empress herself, most of them soldiers, each of their ruined faces an accusation she could not deny in a pretty array of lies. He turned away, knowing that the visions would do them no harm save for making them face the consequences of every move they have made in the last few years.

He would allow the spell to run it's course, and when the ballroom doors were finally closed and locked behind him he would allow himself to wonder how vast a sea of souls he would see if he were to turn such a spell upon himself. As he looked among the collective of elves that now stood with him, he knew that if such a time was ever to come, he was going to make certain that their faces would not be among them.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

He'd never had any desire or cause to visit the crumbling bowels of Skyholds prison while it had been under the Inquisition's rule, it had rarely been used while Talitha sat in judgement and in the two and half years since the elves came to the winter palace, it had only been occasionally used to house the first brave spies that had the misfortune of being discovered. There had also been one or two half hearted incidents of assassins that had not ended well for those with deep enough pockets to hire them, nor for the assassins themselves, who never lasted long enough to make it down to the cells unless wrapped head to toe in a sheet. Orlais had refrained from its attempts to draw them out into a war, but the empire could not resist letting him know that its eye was still upon them.

Above the disused prison, Skyhold itself had been growing to accommodate the slow and steady influx of new faces, expanding its walls to allow for more buildings and room to grow the food they needed to keep the place running. It had been hard for him to reconcile with the fact that his crusade would involve the logistics of farming and trade to begin with. But while teams of scouts hunted all over thedas for the slightest clue to the orbs location, it was easy to see that he had just as much responsibility to ensure a quality of life for the people who had left everything for the promise of a new start, as he did when it came to finally restoring them to that former glory he so longed for. Once more the lives of many were in his hands and he could not fail them again.

He had been going through another round of painstakingly dry reports from his people in Antiva when the guards came to tell him they had caught another intruder in the keep. This one had been making their way to the tower room itself, a mage who had taken the lives of four guards before their archers had taken him down on the battlements. So he once more found himself descending the dungeon steps, intent upon discovering who's pockets directed this less than subtle knife to Skyhold. It was a tiresome business that would inevitably result in the man's death if only so that blood would pay for blood.

He refused an escort down into the dungeons, the guards would have wanted retribution for the death of their friends, and nothing good ever came from a group of angry men in a small room, such a setting called for monstrous acts like punching someone long after their victim had lost the capacity to feel it. He had ordered the walls and the door between the two sections to be repaired as best they could, but when he reached the bottom of the stairs he could still feel the bitter chill of a draft trying to seep through his clothes to bite at his flesh. As he had been descending the stairs he had carefully begun to remove those parts of him that might have still felt the thin thread of reluctance for what needed to be done. He had become so practiced at this over the last few years that it was becoming easier every time. Perhaps what was more worrying was that it was becoming less and less unnerving every time.

But he had once more underestimated this world's capacity for pulling the proverbial rug out from under his feet, and for the first time in quite a while, that stone mask slipped almost entirely when he approached the cell in which their newest prisoner had been secured.

They had bound his wrists in thick iron, attaching the cuffs to the wall either side of his head so that he could not rise from his slumped position, not that he looked in any condition to stand. Solas was ashamed to find that he felt a thin trickle of fear upon seeing the mage, as well as surprised that he had the capacity for any fear beyond failing his people, but the two coincided of course, for _this_ man could have ruined him just as the boy might have done. The chains clinked faintly and the prisoner raised his head enough to peer through lank strands of dark hair, grey eyes burning in a face paled and sweating from the loss of blood.

"Tell me 'apostate', did you feel it?"

His voice had been robbed of it's unctuous tone, turned liquid and clogged by the blood that had crawled up his throat and stained his lips. Dishevelled, torn and standing on the precipice of death he was almost unrecognisable but for the eyes, those accusing eyes that held him unmasked. Had he not wondered when this day would come? The day when he would come face to face with one of the very people he had been forced to dehumanise in order to take the next step forward? In truth he had almost convinced himself that such a day would never come, that the people to whom for whom he had put on the mask in the first place, were all gone, but there has always been a part of him, largely ignored, a part that knew this day would eventually come.

"Why did you come here Dorian?"

The tevinter laughed and the sound was hideous to his ears because it was but a shadow of its former self, filled with a malice he had no doubt had been carried over a number of years. He wanted to look away, to turn away from this spectre of the past, let it die quietly. But he has not lost enough of his soul to imagine that he does not deserve this, that Dorian did not deserve to wield that invisible blade upon his long buried emotions.

"Answer mine and i'll answer yours. I don't recommend you taking too much time to think about it, I fear my brief foray as a pin cushion doesn't give us much time. So I'll ask you again, did you feel it. Don't insult anyone's intelligence by asking what I mean"

Solas carefully lowered himself onto one knee, Dorian's question moving through his mind and rattling upon doors he had once again forced himself to close and bind in stronger chains. He could have easily allowed himself to believe that he might open one of those doors just a crack to appease the man in exchange for his own question to be answered, but in truth it was almost a painful relief to finally admit to another soul what he had felt that day. So he gave the mage the answer he wanted.

"I felt it to the very core, that part of me that had been her suddenly ripped away to leave a timeless agony"

He spoke barely above a whisper, the pain now old yet still fresh enough to bleed its poison back into his heart. He expected no sympathy and that expectation was met as Dorian's smile became a thing of grotesque satisfaction before it malformed into a grimace of pain. His body curled in on itself as much as the chains would allow and he grunted with the effort of sitting backup again.

"Good. You deserve worse, but it'll do"

"I could heal your wounds Dorian"

The offer was automatic and left his mouth before he'd had time to think upon its absurdity. Dorian seemed to think much the same, his chuckle turning into a coughing fit that squeezed tears from his eyes and made the next breath ragged.

"You could, but you won't"

"No, I won't. If i let you live they would simply tear you apart, their loyalty to each other has become fierce, but i could ease the passing, you needn't suffer"

The mage jerked forward in his bindings, the move sudden enough that he does not think to move away before Dorian's face was inches from his own, the sharp coppery tang of blood heavy on his breath.

"Would that make it clean for you Solas, for me to drift into my death in the arms of peace? Do you seek to feel less drenched in gore? You could scrub until the waking sea turned red and it would _never_ be enough to wash all that blood from your hands"

There were few things so cruel as to face the wrath of one he had once called a friend, Dorian's hatred ran over his flesh like the march of a thousand tiny, biting insects, but he refused to flinch. He knelt there within the flames of the tevinters rage, but their scald was distant, as if they reached for him through layers of discipline that had allowed I'm to secure most of his pain behind those doors in the first place.

"Why did you come here Dorian?"

The tevinter slumped back against the wall, the strength of his momentary fire leaving him, his shallow breaths producing a liquid rattle from his chest.

"I came because I'm too stubborn to learn from past mistakes. I came to warn her of what you are before her heart could blind her. Unfortunately it seems that I have failed her too, but I like to think she would have loved that I tried"

He was confused by the answer to begin with, Dorian spoke of warning a woman who was now past all cautions, and briefly he wondered if the tevinter was slipping into some temporary dementia as well as death. Then his eye caught the glimmer of a silver chain about the mage's throat and thought began to appear like some terrible dawn that pained him far more than Dorians question did. It hurt for both the sweetest and foulest of implications. Carefully he reached forward, unsure if Dorian would allow it at first, but as bitter as the mage was, he also recognised his defeat and the futility of petty gestures. Solas withdrew the end of the chain from where it had been tucked beneath robes, revealing the cloudy green crystal that swung back and forth in the dim light.

"You were attempting to reach the past"

It was not a question, and Dorian did not need to dignify it with answer. Not that Solas would have heard it in that moment, his head was too full of all that could have befallen had Dorian succeeded in his plan. The idea was simplistic, yet the complications it would have caused would have been unending. And yet there was a part of him that wondered, how much easier it might have been to never have felt her love, to never doubt himself. To never watch her shatter beneath his words of farewell.

"She _would_ have loved that you tried"

Not for the first time since he had met Talitha, he wondered how she had so effortlessly inspired such devotion from so many different people. It had never been a conscious effort, he was sure of that. The gift of her good nature and empathy were natural things that had come to her as easily as drawing a breath. Dorian had returned to Tevinter to pave a better way for his people, a cause Solas could readily understand, so why would this man of privilege abandon it all in favour of risking his life for the smallest chance that he might save hers? It was a cold question to ask of himself, and even if he could find an answer it would bear him no use other than adding another thorn to his self flagellation.

"She once told me that the cruellest thing you ever did, was to tell her that what the two of you had, was real. She would have given _anything_ for it to all have been a facade, to see you as a monster rather than the man she loved."

"It was never supposed to happen. _She_ was never supposed to happen"

It seemed that Dorian no longer had the strength left to muster laughter, but he tried none the less, shuddering with the effort. Swit dripped from his hair and Solas knew that if he touched the man he would be cold as ice.

"Will that make it feel any better when you finally piss upon her memory by turning the world she saved to ash? All that fighting, the pain and the loss, you watched her walk through hell and you _knew_ it was all for nothing. You were wicked enough to let her love you, and she was too decent for you not to love her back"

How long had it been since someone had spoken such blatant truths to him? The people above them still saw him as something divine despite his fervent assurances that he was still just a man, their voices rarely raised even a question let alone an accusation. Among them it was easy to fall into their need for a god, but down here under the eye of one that had known him better than they ever would, he was just a man who committed sins like any other. His had not been the hands to end her life, but they had guided her towards her death none the less, and there is something almost faintly cathartic about the Tevinter's ill regard, for it was just a fraction of what he deserved.

Once more, Dorian's question doesn't really call for an answer they both already know, it merely calls for him to feel the bulge and splintering crack of wood as those memories strain against the bindings he has placed upon them. But no door remained shut forever, and his old friend possessed a unique key, one that allowed him to feel the weight of sorrow as he watched the life fading from Dorian with every breath he took.

"She once promised me….that I would die surrounded by adoring admirers, and she would tell them all of my...heroic deeds. Somehow I feel quite cheated"

He remembered that day, and though he believed that for once Dorian had not meant it to be another strike from that invisible blade, he none the less felt the keen sting that accompanied the memory.

"I am sure that wherever she is, she will be telling the story of the man who was willing to brave the realms of time itself to save her"

If Dorian had a reply it was lost in the struggle to find his breath as the vital intensity began to bleed away from his eyes. In another time this would have been the last moment before any spell he could cast would save the man, but as much as Dorian had forced him to revisit some of his pain, this was still the time of no compromise. He could not look back and he could not indulge in sudden fits of compassion when they would do him no good. The most he could do was to ensure that the man did not die alone. So he knelt upon the cold and damp stone, watching the life drifting from yet another he had reluctantly named a friend.

It was half an hour before he moved again, though Dorian had finally died long before then, his mind had been in a half seren daze when his fingers reached out and closed about the crystal. The chain snapped easily enough, though he could not help but compare this image with the chains that still managed to restrain his most bitter of thoughts. He held it up to the light and watched it swing back and forth while he thought upon all the possibilities this tiny thing could bring. How easy it would be to simply step into another time and begin all over again. There would be no diminishing of his people, no need to let his orb fall into destructive hands, no cause to surround love in lies and pain.

He could go back, he could save her.

His fingers clutched about the pendant tightly as his eyes closed, the warm light of hope growing from that formerly poisoned place in his heart. He would see her smile again, perhaps watch her in her element while she toured the world with no agenda other than to simply see what it was she saved. He could take that fated moment in Crestwood, carve a future from what was previously ruined.

His fingers uncurled one by one and the glittering dust sifted through them, landing useless and inert at his feet. Even if he really could go back, no matter the reparations he made, he would still always know, always remember. The crystal was a fool's hope, a mistake he would not condemn himself to repeat. Not even for her.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

He stared blankly at the pile of reports in his hand and understood them for the exercise in futility that they were. In the last five years his scouts had searched up and down the length of Thedas and found nothing, now they were sent out to cover old ground rather than giving up entirely. He wondered at what point they would refuse, how far their loyalty would extend without further hope of returning once more to the vitality and power that had been taken so long ago. Skyholds lands still grew, its people prospered and bowed to nobody but him, and only then because he could not persuade them to do otherwise, but how long would it be before this lasting peace ended and they demanded more.

With a sigh of disgust he tossed the papers onto his desk, too late to stop its slide over the surface and off the other side, taking a decanter of wine with it. He swore with some amount of feeling as he hauled himself out of the chair, meaning to save as much of the wine soaked pages as he could. As he bent down to asses the mess he watched the spilled wine filling in the edges between the flagstones, it caught his eye in a way he couldn't explain, until he noted that the flow seemed to disappear down one particular stone. His brow creased as he reached over and pressed upon the stone, there was the faintest give to it.

A minute later he hunched down before the stone again, a flat knife left over from his last meal now digging its way into the gap between the rounded flagstone and the rest. The stone did not come easily, it had likely been years since it had been removed, if at all, yet he has credited himself with knowing every mystery this keep might hold, but this is something new, or perhaps something old that had eluded even his keen eye up until now. He felt the faint spark of hope even as he exerted careful pressure on the knife and stone, he was afraid to feel it, as if wanting it to have been buried here all the time would be cause enough for it not to be. Had his people felt the same each time they came upon a site to search?

When one end of the stone finally came free he almost let it slip back again, catching it barely with the edges of his fingers, the brief pain of being trapped between stone ignored in favour of the effort to yank it free. He stared into the hole left behind, at the rough square box nestled neatly inside, hidden from the rest of the world for who knew how long? His hands shook just enough to be noticed as he reached in and plucked it out, its surface smoother than it looked, almost polished. Now that he had it, he almost didn't want to open it, perhaps he could just imagine that it truly was the orb inside, prolonging the chance of disappointment. But he was not a child and he still believed in his heart that she would have taken the orb somewhere away from here. With a resigned sigh he set the box down and carefully removed the lid.

The scent of pine and lyrium hit him like a solid punch, his olfactory senses igniting memories so clear that they buried him for a moment. Both hands slammed the lid back into place, only briefly registering the neatly folded and tightly bundled reams of paper within. On shaking legs he stood, carrying the box with one arm while the other steadied the few steps it took to fall into one of the chairs by the hearth. The ghost of her scent still clung to him, and in his head he heard her sigh in a moment of pleasure he had long since denied himself the memory of. What lay in the box would likely do no good. Whatever was on those pages would contain pieces of her, the only things that lived on, the remains of her soul etched in ink on paper, now clasped between his hands. What earthly good would it do him to taunt his bound memories? The answer was simple and not nearly enough to stop him from opening the box again, because the idea of possessing even the smallest part of her was too compelling.

He plucked the first folded piece of parchment free, understanding it to be a letter even before he unfolded it to reveal her small and flowing script.

 _ **Solas,**_

 _ **Or should it be Fen'Harel? I must confess that I still find it hard to reconcile with such a truth. You played your part too well, allowed me to see too much of Solas. Was it hard for you I wonder, and is it wicked for me to hope that it was? Not because the idea of such hardship comforts me, but because the alternative is far worse and speaks of a capacity for cruelty that frightens me. What we shared left its mark upon me and I have spent many months trying to hate you for that moment when I looked to the stairs behind me only to find you were not there. But love possesses its own kind of cruelty doesn't it?**_

 _ **The love you had for your people chased you across thousands of years, and now it guides your hands to do something terrible, what chance does a mere mortal have to evade its vicious sting?**_

 _ **So many secrets in your head, it must have been such a heavy burden to carry, but you were right, as much as it pains me to imagine you walking this path alone, it is not a burden I could ever help you carry my love. Yes, you are still my love, as distant and changed as you are, as confused and terrified as I am of your plans, that is one thing that cannot be changed by the nature of your revelation to me. But even though what i feel for you remains unchanged, I understand the role that I must play, the role I invited upon myself when I realised I loved you.**_

 _ **When next we meet it shall be as enemies, I think it might destroy me to fight every instinct that wishes to say otherwise. I would rather save you from yourself, but I do not believe you will allow yourself to be saved, your own guilt would never allow it. I would pray for my hand to be steady in this most awful of tasks yet again set upon my shoulders, but the ones to whom I might once have prayed to, no longer hold the title of 'gods' in my heart.**_

 _ **I seek you in my dreams to tell you these things, but you are either not there, or so well hidden that you make your wish to remain undiscovered perfectly clear. So i must settle for writing words that you will never read. I will mark this page and all the rest that follow with the things that will go forever unsaid between us, perhaps that will be enough, perhaps it will not, but we do the job that is in front of us using the tools we have to hand.**_

 _ **The task in front of you has already cost you so very dearly, i have never pretended that it was easy for you to walk away from me yet again, though I suppose my heart might recover more quickly if i could. It hurts me to think of you so alone, for the people you gather to you now will not be able to help but worship the Dread Wolf, you must know that you cannot take away their gods and not expect them to replace that loss. Naive isn't it? The woman who weeps for the wolf even when there must come a time when his jaws will close upon her throat.**_

 _ **Forgive me, pain brings out poetry from even the clumsiest of hands, and I suppose it explains how I feel far better than any fumbling speech i could fill with jokes and artful jabs at your meagre sense of humor.**_

 _ **I miss you Solas, more than I can ever admit to the people that surround me, I dream of quiet days in that comfortable silence we used to share. There were times when I was simply happy enough to feel your presence, and now it's absence throbs like a sore tooth that will not be ignored. So i dream, knowing that what i see is not real, but still hoping that for just once, i might reach out to that illusion and find that it is you after all. I am aware of how poisonous hope can be, so perhaps I shall no longer hope you will change your mind, or hope that we find some way to stop you that does not involve your death. These are dangerous hopes to have, and over time they could well cripple me. But allow me this one small thing all the same, allow me to enter my dreams with the hope that one night you might not be the sympathy of my subconscious, but as real to me as I once made the world seem real to you.**_

 _ **Until then my love, I choose to remember the best of you.**_

 _ **Talitha**_

He folded the page with almost reverent care, numbness stealing over him as if in automatic defense against this unexpected knife to the heart. Fingers swept beneath his eyes, the faint wetness there almost a surprise, for it has not happened since grief had driven him to his knees five years before. The contents of her heart lay in this box, all her hope and longing etched across so many pieces of parchment. She had hidden them because part of her was ashamed and perhaps even frightened to love a man who held the potential for such destruction in his hands. As the Herald and then the Inquisitor she had been afraid but ultimately certain that she fought on the right side. But the words in his hands were from one who has been twisted between duty and love, much as he had been, and that was never something he had wanted for her.

He rose from the chair, tucking the letter into his robes, clutching the box in one hand as he knelt before the fire. He had known what he had to do as soon as he had seen that the words upon the page were hers, but there is enough of him that missed the sound of her voice enough to keep just one. The rest he placed within the heart of the fire, watching the paper curl and char, the flames licking at fleeting glimpses of other words he would never read. It hurt to destroy a piece of her heart like this, but no amount of longing, his _or_ hers, would ever bring her back, and the letters would only serve to remind him of his darkest hours.

When there was nothing left but charred ash he dragged himself wearily to his bed, now carrying that one small piece of her close to his heart. As he closed his eyes he came to terms with the fact that he would not be able to keep her from his dreams this night, bit if there was to be a small consolation, it would be that he did not have to carry the same burden as she had, for she could no longer be real.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

Though the dungeons had been repaired over time, the cold air still found its way between the stones, its mischievous drafts racing up the stairs to greet him as he descended. To be coming down here again elicits no great distress in him, since Dorians presence the cells have been home only to traitors and the occasional assassin that was merely Orlais way of saying hello these days. The message he had received told him that the particular prisoner that awaited him was already dead, and yet the leader of the scout group that had brought the body to Skyhold seemed to think it was something he had to see. The idea that this body might have something to do with the orb was brief and quickly ignored, he had seen hope in too many guises to let it touch him now.

In the year since the discovery of the box beneath his floor his mind has been turned to the upkeep of peace between Skyhold and the rest of Thedas. His scouts had encountered a few skirmishes, and each encroachment had required more messages to be delivered to those that still sought to test them. They have been lucky in their successes, but he is not enough of an optimist to ever let his guard down for long, underestimating the people behind the power of Thedas would be a disastrous mistake.

The dungeons were surprisingly well lit when he reached the bottom of the stairs. A tall elf of middle age stood beside a temporarily erected table, his travel worn leathers still wet with the new fall of snow. He was shrewd enough not to feel the need to bow or lower his eyes in supplication, but there was an air of nervousness about him that told Solas he was about to hear something he probably wasn't going to like.

"What has happened Telvern?"

"My men, all but myself and Myrrian were killed. Myrrian barely made it back alive, the healers are doing the best they can to repair her leg but i fear the rot set in before we could reach home"

Another attack, he felt the dull thud of anger and that thin thread of patience as he noted that he would once again have to make an appearance to enforce the same message. The loss of a scouting group was small in comparison to the grand scheme of things, but even the smallest challenge needed to be addressed before it could encourage far bolder moves.

"Who was it?"

"That's just it, we don't know. We travelled back to the Emerald Graves as you ordered. You were right, Fairbanks and his people had moved on, we thought we could check the barracks before heading to the elven temple. We weren't in the encampment for thirty seconds when she attacked from nowhere. She took took down 3 of us before we even knew she was there"

Now Solas looked to the shape on the table, its details hidden beneath an old blanket. The name of Fen'Harel had grown in infamy since the day he lay Dorian Pavus' body before the feet of the magisterium. Those that did choose to test the limits of his patience did so with the assurance of powerful allies. For a single person to attack one of his scouting groups was thus far unheard of.

"She said….."

He watched Telvern struggle with the words, bearing the expression of a messenger that expected to be shot for the contents of the message. His impatience finally forced him to step forward and lay a calming hand upon the scouts shoulder, not letting go until he seemed to visibly calm enough to untie his tongue.

"She was shouting as she shot, I couldn't hear most of it but i did catch...well….something along the lines of 'Fucking shite bag, piss pot sons of a four legged whore. Solas can go stick his head back in the fade, because if he sticks it around here I'll shoot the knob from his head' given the familiar...uh...nature of her words we thought it best to bring her back here"

He had no idea what expression crossed his face, but it was enough to cause Telvern take a few steps to the side as he reached out for the blanket covered shape, already knowing what, or who he would find beneath. She had changed very little in the years since he had last seen her, even death had not robbed her of that perpetual half sneer she could never keep in check. For all that she had frustrated and sometimes even angered him, he found no joy in seeing how depleted she was in her death. Half of Sera's personality resided in a voice that would never again taunt or berate him, and that was a dreadful waste despite the direction in which her loyalties had lay.

"What was she doing there?"

"Scavenging I think, Fairbanks and his people left much behind….though there was something else. I can't quite understand what it is. Solas….did you know her?"

He could only nod in response as Telvern handed him a much creased scrap of paper, the explanation itself would have been impossible to articulate. There were times when he had considered this brash young woman to be a shining example of everything that had gone wrong with his people. She had always gone out of her way to make him feel as uncomfortable as possible, and her verbal disapproval of Talitha's attachment to him had never been far from his ears. And yet she had fought like a small demon at his side, and like the others she was another part of that precious past he could never fully let go.

"Have some of the guards bury her with our dead, then go and rest Telvern, your heart must be as weary as your body"

He didn't argue, but Solas saw the note of distaste at the idea of giving the woman who had murdered his men anything resembling a proper burial, but the advantage of a reluctant god like status was that most eccentricities could be explained by the divine right to work in mysterious ways. As Telvern ascended the steps, Solas found himself wondering if this was truly the last of them. Each time he seemed to believe the potential for accidental memory had passed, they would catch him off guard. The boy Kester, Dorian, and now Sera, the elf who was never truly an elf in the spiritual sense of the word.

By the time he covered her and finally turned away, he had almost forgotten about the scrap of paper in his hand, and he has to wonder with the faintest touch of amusement, if he were not about to reveal another of the girls ridiculously accurate and comically inclined drawings.

It was not a drawing.

In the depths of his mind the chains stretched and then snapped with metallic screams. Door's rattled violently on their hinges, as an army of memories beat themselves against their wooden barricade. His fingers were almost numb enough to drop the paper and the rest of the world seemed very far away, as if somehow he had become untethered from it. It had been a long time since he felt his heart beat quite so emphatically, for a second it almost felt like dying.

 _ **In the place where cruelty tried to overcome the magic of youth and paid for it in violent dreams.**_

He had no doubt that the meaning of these words were important, but they were vastly overshadowed by the letters themselves. Aware that he was breathing heavily as well as shaking, he turned the parchment over and over in his hands, even lifting it to his nose to inhale the faint aromas it had picked up on its journey to his hands. The paper was not old, the ink not faded and the words….

Reaching inside his robes he pulled out a much folded piece of parchment, unfolding it once more to compare the careful lettering. The handwriting on that long buried letter and the small scrap of paper matched, though they had no earthly right to.

He barely noticed when his knees gave out from beneath him, he simply slid numbly to the floor, unable to stop his eyes from comparing each and every letter between the two pieces of paper, perhaps hoping to spot some discrepancy that would free him from the heart wrenching truth. For over six years he had mourned her, systematically burying her memory in order to move on without feeling her sorrowful eyes upon his back. The doors that he had bound were now flung open, the memories pouring in much like the demons had poured from the breach. There had been things he had done that were far easier to accomplish knowing that she would never know of them, that she would never know _him_ as he was now.

But much as he had shattered her heart with just a few words, she now shattered that self assurance with just a few of her own. The words upon that tiny scrap of paper were not poetry but a clue to a meeting place, a place he had once known and shared with her.

In the stone silence of the dungeon a piece of his heart broke away.

"Oh Vhenan. What have you done?"


	4. Chapter 4

The numb shock that had been inflicted upon him by a mere piece of parchment had not abated. Given the previous need to entrap all thoughts of her in a safe place, he had not been prone to fits of imagination that allowed him to think upon what he would do if such an impossible situation occurred. His faculties had been far too occupied in mourning her death to ever taunt himself with waking dreams of a resurrection that would never happen. But if he had, if he had been free to sketch such a story in his own mind, even he would not be so modest as to think that he wouldn't immediately seek out his lost love should she ever be mysteriously returned to this world. The truth was often vastly estranged from what reality provided. His penchant for solitude hid the long term mental fugue in which he had found himself, none of them considering the silence in the main tower anything to comment upon. There was nobody to witness the almost catatonic state that held him for almost a week as he moved around his own tower like a ghost.

His mind had been struck still, caught upon a single thought like a scrap of cloth hanging from a nail. Her face, captured in a constant shift between life and death, unable to settle upon the truth, or perhaps unwilling to come to full terms with the fact that she may have tricked him after all this time. If he were to fathom a deeper truth it would be that he could never consider her capable of such a thing, it was too cruel, and she had never been cruel, it was all but impossible for him to see her hand composing such a brutal solution.

On the other hand, the letter and the parchment made the truth irrefutable, no matter how much his mind struggled with the idea. Yet he had _felt_ her absence, the part of him that had been made for her had been scooped out piece by piece until that hollowness became a physical thing, a sensation of emptiness that he carried with him. How was he to fill that empty space now, even given the very real possibility that she was still alive? He had lived with it for so long.

Every time he even attempted to come to terms with what those two pieces of paper told him, he would then be lost again when he tried to imagine how and _why_ she would do such a thing as fake her own death. She had been resigned and determined to meet him on the field of battle, to stand beside her friends in one last glorious march, her unchangeable loyalty had demanded that much of her. His memory was vast enough that he could construct her into any scenario if he chose to do so, but even his prolific mental photography couldn't compose any picture in which she would choose to turn her back upon the Inquisition.

There were too many questions and not enough believable answers.

When he tried to sleep his thoughts would drift to the moment when he had seen her cut down. He had watched in masked horror as they held her head aloft by its bloodied hair and howled their victory. After he'd hung the men who dared to decorate Skyholds walls with butchery, he had buried her along with the rest of them, in a small garden long overgrown, hidden behind a reflection. He had felt the weight of that body in his arms, the reality of it right there in the cold stiffness of her flesh. He'd briefly considered digging up the grave again, but the idea that she had somehow crawled from her grave in some unmanned garden at the crossroads was ludicrous, and the idea of standing over her bones while covered in her grave dirt repelled him.

And so he remained in a state of perpetual limbo, his thoughts charging from one horizon of the mind to another, like a dog chasing it's tail, all the while being acutely aware that if she truly was alive, the longer he allowed himself to sit here and let his thoughts argue amongst themselves, the more likely it would be that she would have moved on before he could seek out the truth.

At some point he found himself sitting before an easel staring blindly at a blank canvas. When his mind was under siege from conflictions and indecision he often found himself with a brush in his hand. He would wait in perfect patience for his subconscious to guide him not through complicated thought, but through his hand, compelling to depict the most relevant point. At first nothing came to him but those same conflicting thoughts, still swarming his mind, finding new places in which to set their sting. It was only when he forced his own hand to strike out at the canvas with his brush, with no real idea of what he was going to paint, all he needed at that point was a single mark upon all that untouched white, a starting point for his thoughts to follow, after that it was a simple matter of letting his subconscious do its job. He worked for hours, the action of painting first luring him into a clearer state of mind as abstract shapes began to take form, and when it captured him entirely he was lost in another kind of fugue, one that kept his brush moving long after the ache set its jaws into his wrist.

He only allowed his body to collapse boneless and exhausted into his chair when the painting was done, sleep taking him like an abductor, dragging him into the dark.

His dreams were a maelstrom of memories that sucked him in one after another until he couldn't tell where one memory began and the other ended. He allowed himself to tumble freely through this fragmented dreamscape, resisting the urge to guide his path with too much force, much as he had when painting. He watched their time together flash past his eyes, every image muted and suffused in green light. When he woke, it was with the knowledge that he had finally found that relevant point he needed to narrow his scattered focus. He climbed out of bed and padded over to the finished painting, barely remembering what the end result had been, but it was clear once he saw the canvas, that his dreams and those subconscious thoughts had both come to the same point.

He had painted her in a series of greys and black, her solitary figure standing at one end of a road that stretched into a perspective that spoke of vast miles. Dead trees twisted into malformed shapes lined either side of this road, their branches forming a rough arch, as if they had been reaching for each other in the moment of their death. The picture would have been utterly bleak if not for the object cupped in her hands. It was the world, cupped safely in her hands, its spherical edges radiating with that same pale green light. The meaning was so simple as to be obvious to him now, perhaps embarrassingly so, for how could this not have occurred to him before? There was an easy answer to this of course, she had always been able to scatter his thoughts to the four winds without much effort.

She held the world in her hands, and that was not just a metaphor. His scouts had been looking for a hiding place for all these years because he had been convinced she would have hidden it knowing she would not live to protect its location. Now faced with the possibility that she was alive, he began to understand that her solution may have been far more simple. She had kept the orb with her, naming herself it's keeper, putting herself between it and all those that now searched for it. Was this why she had orchestrated her counterfeit death, it made far more sense than the idea that she would simply abandon the rest of the inquisition. Before, he had been unable to think of a single reason why she would not have given her life to stand beside her friends, but if she imagined that she was the only thing to keep him from finding that final piece of the puzzle, it would of course have been in her nature to make such a sacrifice.

He called those he trusted best to the tower room and explained his plans to leave for a short time. None of them expressed surprise, it had become his habit to deal with certain matters alone and they had long ago stopped asking about the whens and wheres of his travels, it was one of the very few useful things about people placing him upon that god like pedestal. He took his time packing and changed his clothes to the ragged but comfortable garb he had worn when still with the Inquisition, the people of Thedas knew his name well, but there were few among the common folk who knew his face, and he would fare better in what Dorian had dubbed his 'Apostate hobo' gear. His mind was now clear because he needed it to be, now that he had decided to finally pursue a goal, his thoughts were now attempting to turn to what he might do if he really did find her, and there were even more opposing opinions waiting on that line of thought, any one of which might well draw him back into that fugue state again.

The last thing he did before stepping through the Eluvian, was to destroy the painting. It stabbed at his pride to do so because it really was a thing of somewhat macabre beauty, but the nature of his relationship with Lavellan had remained a secret from those who now served him and he would not risk prying eyes being able to decipher the deeper feeling behind the picture. He watched the paint bubble and burn, the careful features of her face becoming warped and ugly beneath the flames until only ash remained, and as he stood again he felt a chill shiver race down the length of his spine as he prayed to the world in general that such destruction of her image would not eventually become prophecy.

 **~~~o0O0o~~~**

The air smelled heavily of recent heavy rain and new growth, the ground giving a little beneath his feet as he began to get his bearings, it had been some time since he had last been here and the greenery had already overgrown some of the old paths he recognized. The last time they were here, he might have said that there hadn't been time to appreciate the wild beauty of this place, but he'd seen the ache of familiarity that Talitha couldn't quite hide, and they had perhaps spent more time than needed searching the area for red templars and freemen. The place had a stillness to it that it didn't have before, of course without the freemen roaming the roads and the red templars trying to move their lyrium through the Graves there was a lot less around to disturb the natural order of things. But there was still a hushed and expectant quality to this new silence, and it was easy to get the impression that you were being watched.

Eventually he decided that the only things watching him were likely creatures in the undergrowth who were still trying to work out if he was a danger or a possible meal, and he began to carefully retrace old steps that would take him to the small bridge that stretched across the overburdened stream. Now that he was here, he could no longer hold back the tide of questions that had gone unanswered in the days he had spent trying to decide what he should do next. He could only guess upon her reaction to seeing him again as being adverse given that she had expended some amount of serious effort to disappear, but what was his reaction going to be?

It was the one question that he alone should have had the answer to, but every time he tried to focus on a particular emotion he found himself with a belly full of snakes that churned and roiled at the thought of coming face to face with her once more after all this time. Who would she be when he found her? Surely not the same woman who had laughed easily and viewed the world through hopeful eyes, hiding for so long changed something essential in a person. Would she still possess that same vibrant spontaneity that had once allowed her to run through this very forest chasing august rams?

A small part of him liked to imagine so, but that unshakable pragmatism warned him that higher his hopes rose, the more likely the chance of them crashing at his feet. Did he even have any right or practical reason to hope? He had finally dedicated himself fully to bringing his people back to their full potential, would her being safe, happy and whole make the slightest difference to that? More importantly, would it make it any more likely that she would give up the orb without a fight?

" _And what will you do if she refuses?"_

This question scared him, badly. It had been a long time since his fear had been provoked, but every time he got near to thinking about what might happen if she refused to give him the foci, his body broke out in a cold sweat. Six years ago he had barely accepted that he must end her on the battlefield, now he was alone and it would not be a case of her death being one among many, but cold blooded murder, because if she did choose to fight, she would do so with the same determination that had ended Corypheus. And so with every step he took, deeper into this green haven she had chosen, he could not help but note how his feet dragged as his desire to see her again, warred with the knowledge that this could end tragically.

As he was navigating his way around a recently fallen rockpile, he heard the distinct sound of several people moving in heavy armour and became perfectly still. It was unlikely that Orlais would send patrols through such a wild area, and both the Villa Maurel and the Chateau were unoccupied according to his scouts reports. With his body mostly hidden behind the fall of rocks he peered carefully to where the bridge crossed over to the Chateau's entrance to see a ragged band of men in mismatched armour making their way carefully to one side of the gate. Everything about them advertised that they were neither hunters nor any kind of official guard, their weapons were just as mismatched as the armor, both of which were as unkempt as the men themselves, and they spent rather too much time periodically looking over their shoulders as if expecting trouble.

Solas might have cursed his luck if he didn't think they might hear him.

 _In the place where cruelty tried to overcome the magic of youth and paid for it in violent dreams_

The clue had led him here, the Chateau d'Onterre, a once nightmarish place that had been infested with undead and a particularly cruel demon. It was a vast building and easy to hide in, but he couldn't help but wonder why she would have not felt more comfortable in the woods as she always had. There were only five of them, but he'd been hoping to approach as quietly as possible, if he made too much noise in dispatching these men it might be all the warning she would need to flee again. As he watched them approach the main gates, something fleeting caught his eyes, a distortion of the air atop the wall surrounding the Chateau, he tried to focus on it but the moment he did, he lost it.

Before he could go another round of deciding whether or not he should risk action now. something released a blood curdling cry and complete mayhem landed in the middle of the bandits. The horned creature was a confusion of feathers, bone and fur, it whirled amongst the men like a small maelstrom, lashing out with gibbering snarls and high pitched shrieks that drilled their way into his brain and made him grimace. The shape darted to and fro, it's attacks swift and lethal, one already falling to his knees clutching his throat while blood poured steadily between his fingers. The figure vanished, only to come up behind another of the bandits, his back arching as something buried its way into his back with a flash of amber light that disappeared as quickly as the agile creature.

Something tugged at the back of his mind for attention, but he shrugged it away, creeping around the rocks to get a better look as it appeared again mid leap, its legs wrapping about a third bandit's neck, a twist of it's body snapping bone, leaping away again before the man even hit the floor, already dead. One of the men clearly decided on his life over loyalty and fled the other way, but the last was man was older, and his numerous scars spoke of more experience. Solas watched him grow quiet, already understanding that he needed to use his ears rather than his eyes now. The rest of the forest seemed to grow still, as if every creature now held it's breath in anticipation

The bandit suddenly pivoted on one foot and brought his greatsword down heavily on seemingly nothing. There was a grunt of effort and the creature reappeared as the great sword clashed with something in another flash of that amber light. Solas squinted against the brief glare, and when his vision cleared he saw the old bandit attempting to use his superior weight to push away the creatures blade, a weapon composed of crackling light and spirit energy. He felt his heart drop several degrees below zero as he began to understand and see the picture more clearly. The 'creature' dropped and rolled away as the bandit staggered forward under his own exertions, barely getting one foot under him before the figure sprang up and brought the spirit blade down hard, severing his neck from his shoulders.

Even as he watched the armoured body tumble, he heard a rustling not a few feet beside him and tensed. From amongst a clump of bushes, the runaway bandit returned, this time aiming a bow across the river and for once, Solas didn't need to think at all, merely react. Stepping alongside the terrified looking man he brought the heavy end of his staff down on one arm, hearing the satisfying and brittle crack of bone before the staff whirled and its bladed end speared the hapless bowman against the nearest tree.

That sense of utter stillness came again as he yanked the staff blade free and he turned to see the horned figure staring at him from across the river. It was easy to see why he had been confused at first, she wore a demonic headdress of bone and horns that obscured the upper half of her face, topped with a multitude of feathers that fell like strange hair about her shoulders and hung to her waist. With her body wrapped tightly in fur and more salvaged bone that looked as though it had been fashioned from the same demon as the headdress, it was clear to see that she had desired to seem as monstrous as possible. Now he could feel her regard settling upon him, the slow tilt of her head as animal like as the rest of her unique costume.

"Vhenan?"

The figure flinched, and when he took a step forward she took one back, her knees bending with a click and rattle of bones as her body became hunched in an undeniably defensive pose. His heart throbbed in his chest with the next step he took, knowing it was a mistake the very second he moved, yet unable to help himself. She was so _close_!

"Talitha, wait!"

But she had already turned on her heel and bolted and he gave chase immediately, knowing that if he gave her the smallest chance she would outrun him and then he would never find her. She was even faster than he remembered, her feet taking her in a zig zag pattern that drove them both into dangerous territory filled with thick, jutting branches and treacherous tree roots. He had never tried to run with her before, and even while he ran flat out, she was putting more and more distance between them. His body and his magic now both resonated with the sympathetic and unified need to catch her and it was a glorious relief to be able to let it happen. All those years before, such magic would have unmasked him to the Inquisition, now he allowed the flow of his natural magic to take him with abandon. The change was no grand spectacle, he merely felt everything he was, being poured into a more convenient shape that had simply been waiting for him all along. There was a single complicated moment when his mind was trying to control six legs at once, then six became four and he was suddenly gaining speed.

She didn't look over her shoulder, she was too clever to break her own concentration while the risk of tripping or impalement was still present, but she guided their path deeper into the woods, creating obstacles from rock piles and areas crisscrossed with thick vines through which she slipped with an eerie agility. Solas was only able to keep up through the simple expedient of not stopping. He leapt the rock piles and tore his way through the thick vines, unable to thread his larger wolf shape through them with as much skill as she had, yet his endurance is renewed and by making him chase her she was tapping into something old and primal that lived in the minds of both men and beasts, his adrenaline rising with every foot of distance he closed between them.

She suddenly leapt with a snarl and promptly plummeted out of sight. Now he _did_ stop, all four paws digging furrows into the earth as he came to a sliding halt just inches from the edge of an overgrown and mostly hidden descent down into the stream below. His eyes darted frantically from one end of the stream to the other as he cursed in his head, descending the steep hill of rock and weeds carefully, loose pebbles sliding out from beneath his paws to splash into the water below. He could not see her, yet surely she hadn't enough time to disappear to the other side of the stream before he'd reached the edge of the hill.

When he was on firmer ground he allowed the change to take him again, and on two legs he stood very still, his head cocked to one side, in much the same way the bandit had earlier, though this was not a particularly comforting thought given what she had done to him. Of all the reactions he might have expected from her, this had been beyond the grasp of his imagination, that palpable sense of almost violent fear that had radiated from her. He'd smelled it as he'd chased her, his heightened senses triggering yet more old and primal senses in his brain then. But now the very idea disturbs him almost as much as that renewed silence and the knowledge that she seemed to have acquired the ability to disappear at will.

It was the sudden rush of air that alerted him in time to bring his staff up to catch the descending spirit blade half way through its intended slice, and he met her wild eyed stare through the eye sockets of her macabre mask, his own expression falling into disbelief as he realised she'd tried to cut him in two!

It seemed she had no patience for the same test of strength as before and she raised the blade to bring it down again, then again, her strikes filled with the fury that pulled her lips back in a snarl. Again and again she struck, the furious blows forcing him to take the defensive stance, his backwards steps leading them into the stream. She was losing all finesse in her desperation, but seemed to be making up for it by sheer determination and wild panic, each parried blow from the blade sending painful vibrations up his arm. While his concentration was bent upon continuously deflecting her blows, his own natural instincts began to alight his anger and when her next swing barely missed his face he felt the roil of power building as his subconscious prepared to protect the rest of him.

"STOP!"

The shout echoed loudly through the trees and several nugs fled from beneath a clump of bushes as his magic snapped outwards in a single blast that knocked her backwards five feet, her body landing heavily in the water, the spirit blade sliding out of existence as he rattled her concentration as well as her bones. He was on her before she could struggle her way back to her feet, his knees digging painfully into her inner thighs while she snarled and swiped at his face with her hands. He wrestled briefly to get a grip on both wrists, but even then she thrashed and bucked beneath him, truly wild with both terror and rage, lunging upwards against his grip to snap her teeth at his face.

"Talitha…. _Talitha stop_ , it's over!"

She bucked again, almost throwing him off her, twisting her wrists in his grip at the same time until one hand came free and she finally marked him with a rake of her nails across his face. Instinct rose again as it clashed with pain and frustration and he snatched up the freed wrist again, slamming both beneath the water, his face jerking to just inches away from hers with an archaic growl that should not have been possible. The sound seemed to reach into that part of her brain that she had once called her 'monkey brain', the part of her that told her when to freeze like the pinned animal she currently was. She would have been utterly still if not for the fast and hard quality of her breathing, almost as if she were one step away from hyperventilating.

"Stop. Moving"

The edge of that growl still chased the tail of these words as he very carefully gathered both of those thin wrists in one hand, pulling his face back as he reached for the bone mask that hid all but the lower half of her face. She jerked her head away on the first try, but eventually he got a good grasp despite the dagger like fangs that framed her jaw. He moved with a reverent sort of care now, aware that his hand was shaking as he pushed the mask up from her face. If she had chosen to buck or jerk her hands free just then she would have gotten away, for something weakened in him when he finally saw her face.

His memory had recalled it perfectly, the angle of her high cheekbones, the sharp line of her jaw, the blue of her eyes, but the remembered picture was only perfect on one side. Deep furrows had at some point been raked along one side, from forehead to jaw, and the eye on this side peered blindly up at him through a cloudy white sheen. Her expression depicted a feral sort of fear that was directed at him and this was perhaps almost worse than seeing the scars that marred her face. They stared at each other in silence and he watched the tears first gather then fall as she slowly shook her head back and forth, either in denial or simply to tell him that she had no words for him, and in that moment he could find none for her, because there simply were no words to articulate what was welling up inside him.

The beautiful, kind hearted creature he had believed dead, had been returned to him vicious, scarred and full of fear, there was no telling what she had been through and how much of it might have been his fault. If he'd ever had any small salvation in the years before they met in battle, was that even though he had hurt her, he had never broken her, but this...this went beyond broken, this was so very far from the woman he remembered.

"I'm not sure if this will kill you...buuut i'm pretty sure Sera loaded it with fire bolts, so at the very least it's going to burn. Get off her"

The voice was familiar, but he didn't have time to think upon it. Once again he displayed an eerie speed as he he hauled both himself an Talitha to their feet, crossing her arms over her chest along with his own even as she sought to take advantage and squirm away. Dagna stood in the middle of the stream, holding up a crossbow that looked two sizes too big for her. It didn't look quite as deadly as Bianca, but it was likely still powerful enough to launch the loaded bolt at deadly speeds.

"Dagna. Where is…."

It was the first time he had heard her speak in six years and the words were rife with panic verging on the edge of hysteria, and yet almost as soon as she started to speak she cut off her own words, as though he could have no idea of what they spoke.

"Safe" Dagna said quickly, narrowing her eyes at him and lifted the crossbow just a little higher, though it took visible effort.

"You are not going to shoot me Dagna. We will return to the Chateau and…"

At the mention of the Chateau Talitha renewed her struggles, lunging forward in an attempt to break his hold, forcing him to move with her as she jerked and heaved against his crossed arms. From the corner of his eye he could see the tip of that crossbow bolt wavering in the air, trying to find a shot, and if he didn't get control of this situation quickly, nerves or bad judgement was going to kill someone. With a grunt of effort he threw Talitha heavily to one side, her body impacting into the thick trunk of an oak as he ducked, feeling the wind of the bolt on the back of his neck before he was upright again, his magic lashing out in an ethereal fist that slammed into the dwarf and knocked her off her feet into the water.

He reached her in just a few strides and grasped the collar of her tunic as he scooped up the fallen crossbow and flung it far over to the other bank. With his eye on the unmoving shape at the bottom of the oak, he dragged the dazed dwarf onto the bank, he didn't know if he had intentionally sought to knock Talitha unconscious, but whether he did or he didn't the result was the same and he could now turn to securing the dwarf. He tugged a bandana free from about her neck and took his time securing her hands together before lowering himself to his haunches to bring himself eye level with the scowling dwarf.

He was wet and cold, his limbs ached with exertion and his face stung where he'd been clawed, his patience had been very quickly whittled to a sharp point and it showed in the way his eyes now centered upon Dagna, his gaze hitting her like a thrown dart.

"I am taking her back to the mansion. You may stay here or follow, I care not which, but do not get in my way, you will not keep me from her or what I have come for"

He didn't wait for an answer, far too aware that Talitha could awaken at any time. He stood and moved to the base of the tree where he bent again, carefully turning her head in his hands, sighing quietly when he noted the thin trickle of blood that ran from her hairline. A quick inspection revealed no fractures or moving bone and only then did he pick her up, noting how much lighter she was as he placed her over his shoulder.

"Do you really think it will be as easy as showing up again? It has been six years Solas and you have no idea what has hap-"

He turned with a sharp look, his glare cutting off her words like a guillotine, and when he pointed back towards the direction of the Chateau she sighed wearily and took point, her despondent steps leading the way.

She was right of course, he had absoloutley no idea what had happened to Talitha in the last six years, and he only had the vaguest of ideas about what would happen if she woke up, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. The only way to calm himself now was to rely upon certainties, and the only thing he was certain of now was both their reactions at the mention of that once haunted building. Somewhere in the Chateau, his foci awaited him, and if nothing else came out of this highly confusing and emotionally draining mess, he would content himself with finally securing the means of a better future for his people.

Or so he told himself. Because it was easier than thinking about or admitting that her fear of him was slowly causing his heart to break.

 **~~o0O0o~~**

It did not take them quite as long to reach the chateau as he first imagined. It turned out that Talitha had taken them on a rather circular route, trying to lose him somewhere amid the trees and vines before desperation had led her to jump down into the stream. She remained limp over his shoulder as the rooftops came into view behind the trees, but given her earlier ferocity he found himself constantly alert and ready to combat a sudden flurry of movement. In front of him, Dagna carefully picked her way through the undergrowth, she'd picked up the demonized headdress in both bound hands by one of it's curved horns, and now it's damp feathers dragged laboriously behind her as she struggled to navigate over a clump of tree roots. He didn't offer to help and she didn't ask, neither one of them trusting the other as far as either of them could throw a full grown Qunari.

When they reached the main gates she fumbled laboriously about her person to find the key, her bound hands forcing her to work at an awkward angle when it came to unlocking it. Solas stepped through into the gardens beyond and waited for her to lock the gates behind them and resume her place just ahead. The gardens had been running to overgrown the last time, now nature had clearly begun to reclaim the land, obscuring their view of the lower half of the house with tall grasses and overarching plants growing heavily over ripe with flowers and broad green leaves, permeating the air with a thick, jungle like smell.

Inside the house was just as dark and draughty as he remembered, only now several layers of thick dust had settled over most of the surfaces. Though they had banished the evil presence that had drawn the undead to this place, there was still an empty feeling of desolation and despondency about this place, as if the very building mourned its slow decline. The light coming from the dirt flecked windows was only just enough to see by and memory served him enough to guide them up the vaulted staircase to the second floor. They stopped outside an open door leading to a bedroom that had an air of being lived in recently, and it took Dagna a few moments to note his pointed stare, her own expression crumpling before she forced it back into determination.

"I'm not leaving you with her!"

"You will, my patience has become thinner than a strand of silk, i suggest you do not test its resistances further"

She opened her mouth to argue and his eyes flared with misted blue light that had her backing quickly into the room, her lower lip trembling with impotent anger that appeared no less dangerous for all her diminutive stature, and it is only now that he remembers that his own scouts had killed someone she had cared for deeply just days before. He forced that fearful light to fade from his eyes, his voice still firm but his expression softening.

"I have not come here to harm her Dagna. But I am going to talk to her, and I wish to do that alone"

He closed the door upon her unchanging expression, passing his hand over the lock which first turned white with heat before it began to warp and melt into a solid mass that would make picking the lock impossible. Shifting Talitha's weight on his shoulder, he took to another flight of stairs, the next floor housing the stuffed and mounted dragon suspended from the ceiling with thick cables, it's mouth still held open in a silent roar. The large drawing room beyond was cold and even darker than it had been downstairs, but he remembered the couch and found it to still be there. He carefully lay her down and assured himself that she was still unconscious before he turned to the large hearth in front of them. There was no firewood in the basket beside the fire, but this end of the large room was filled with spindly decorative tables that could be smashed against the hard marbled edge of the fireplace, and after fifteen minutes of surprisingly satisfying destruction, he managed to get a fire lit.

Only now did he begin to feel some of the layers of tension sliding away from his shoulders, some of that alertness falling away as he finally knelt beside the couch to finally get an unobstructed look at the woman who had successfully hidden from him for over six years. The fur and bone had been bound to her body with intricate ties of thin rope, he set to work on these, meticulously unravelling each knot, placing the bone and layers of fur wrappings on the floor beside him until he revealed the vest and short leathers beneath. He observed that she was thinner than he remembered, but tough as ironwood, her sinewy muscle now more defined than it had been.

Scars lined her arms like white ropes embedded in her tanned skin and once more he faintly wonders what wars she has fought to be in such a condition. A finger draws a half moon under her ruined eye, the texture of the scars there causing him to grit his teeth as an old feeling of anger crept up on him, He mourned that lost gaze of twin orbs regarding him in quiet amusement, even as his thumb smoothed over her brow. To touch her again was something privately sacred, an unbidden wish come true, but not in a way he had ever wanted.

He remembers her fear of him and that sickened feeling churns in his gut again as he set his hands over the wound on her scalp, forcing the flow of his magic to gentle some before he let it set to healing the small injury. She was alive, and no matter their current position as friends or enemies, some part of him was quietly overjoyed, but the effect was poisoned by her reaction and by the very true fact that she had tried her damndest to kill him when she saw him. In all that they had been through she had never thought that violence was the way to get through to him, and she had loved him enough that attacking him had never been possible. Had six years finally been enough for love to be corrupted into hate?

Only when she was healed to his satisfaction did he turn and sit with his back propped against the couch, to watch the flames devour a dismembered end table. One hand remained resting lightly on her arm, as if he didn't dare lose complete contact with her, just in case she melted away like smoke, or a dream.

Where had she been, and who had she fought to have gained so many new scars. She could not have been here for six whole years, the house wasn't nearly lived in enough for that, the layers of dust proved that much. So she had travelled...but why? He still couldn't wrap his head around what she could have been thinking to keep the orb with her, she'd had the entirety of Thedas in which to hide it. Why fake her death only to live a life where she must constantly run, none of it made any sort of sense to him, not when he had known her to be fiercely intelligent.

She had outwitted him once, and that had been enough for her to gain an advantage, she had done so again by causing him to believe she was dead, and she had been utterly determined to stand beside her friends to the end, even if that meant facing him on the battlefield, what could have possibly turned her from such a iron clad course.

As his thoughts began to chase each other's tails he let them, partially ignoring them in favour of absorbing her actual presence once again so very close to his own. Their natural personal spaces had always merged together with ease, and it was almost possible to pretend that they did so now while she wasn't fighting against him. He still loved her. He had known this somewhere in the periphery of his soul, but the reality of it hit him now in this half dark and silent room. It complicated matters and it always would, making every simple task a treacherous journey of the heart that would almost certainly kill one or both of them as he had once thought it had. But he loved her, and it came to him in a warm rush that might have knocked him off his feet had he been standing. He turned slightly, bowing his head to the back of her still hand, inhaling that aroma of pine and lightning that had haunted him for so long. The reality of her was still so very hard to take, and he couldn't help but rub the side of his face along her arm like an animal scenting, the gesture for comfort rather than any private perversion. When he stilled, he allowed himself to drift not into sleep but a sort of daze that allowed nothing else in but her scent and her slowly warming skin. For just this one moment nothing else existed. Not his foci, his people or the conversation that must happen when she finally woke, only her and the fact that she still existed in this world.

Over time the fire began to dwindle, but he couldn't quite force himself to pull away from her and bit by bit the shadows crept over them as the sky beyond the windows dimmed, casting the room in darkness that shifted with the trees outside.

It was the sound of careful footsteps that forced him back to that fully alert state, some part of him had clearly still been listening even while he had been partially lost in the woman beside him. He should have guessed that the melted lock wouldn't have fooled Dagna forever, the woman had a mind like a steel trap and he had lingered here too long. He rose wearily, scooping up his staff as he peered into the darkness, trying to discern the dwarfs shape among the swaying shadows. He would have cursed himself a fool, but surely no man could blame him for a loss of sensibilities at this time?

The footsteps stopped and Solas could feel eyes upon him, tracing his outline in the dark. He was about to take a step forward when a tremulous voice spoke up from just a few feet away, and Solas felt all the air leave his lungs in a sharp gasp, as once again, his whole world changed.

"Mamae?"


	5. Chapter 5

He had almost forgotten what fear tasted like until he was served a reminder in the bitter spice that crawled up the back of his throat, coating his tongue. It grew into an unforgiving knot that twisted and lashed in his gut like a trapped creature. The world dropped away from beneath his feet, accompanied by the percussion of his own heart, and fear once more displayed its ability to reach all men as he stared into the indistinct darkness where another in a long line of unforeseen consequences began to make itself known. Of all the things he might have expected when he came here, this had not even been within the realm of possibility, but even while caught within the frozen trap of his own sudden and overwhelming fear, he began to understand perhaps just enough to quietly devastate himself all over again.

The pregnant silence was disturbed by the softest of exhales and light bloomed, small and weak against the shadows that filled the large room, but enough to illuminate Talitha's eyes in a stranger's face. The boy held the candle between two small hands and stared across the space between them, unmoving but for the shadows that flickered over his solemn expression, perhaps as frozen as he was. In those moments of unrevealing darkness there might have been a chance to persuade himself away from the truth, but while that single candle threw light upon the small physical details that were undeniably his own, the truth sat like a heavy band of iron about his throat.

"You're not supposed to be here. Where is my mother?"

The capacity to react beyond the numb silence that had stolen him, had not yet returned, and he found himself pointing wordlessly with an arm that barely felt attached to the rest of his body. The boy did not look away from the silent intruder as he crossed the short distance to the couch, those distinctive eyes were drawn together in suspicion...but not fear. The parched trap of his throat only seemed to clear when that narrowed stare finally dropped to the figure on the couch as the boy set the candle on one of the nearest tables, though remained silently awed for a few moments longer as he watched the small figure scoop up some of the fallen scraps of furniture to place them carefully into the dying fire.

"What is your name?"

The words left him in the dry husk of a whisper and he almost fancied that he could taste their dust on his tongue as he risked a single step towards the growing light, his leaden feet as distant from him as the rest of his body. The boys suspicion had melted back into that solemn expression as he carefully shifted strands of obscuring hair from his mother's face.

"Nellas"

The name crawled inside his head, adding a grounded reality to a situation that felt like it should be a dream. But the cool marble beneath his feet was real and the moth eaten velvet of the couch's backrest shifted beneath his hand when he reached out to grasp it, fingers pressing into reality so that it bit all the harder when the shifting light underlined the unmistakable parody of his own face staring back at him. He watched in silent fascination as the boy laboriously dragged the ragged remains of a torn curtain over to the couch, becoming utterly undone as he witnessed the meticulous and undeniably loving care he invested in covering every inch of her vulnerable flesh. When the boy seemed satisfied with his mother's comfort, he finally returned his discerning gaze to Solas, curiosity now shining behind eyes perhaps aged just a touch beyond what they should have been.

"Did you hurt her?"

What surprised Solas more in that moment was not the question itself, though it did cause his slowed brain to halt entirely for just a moment or two. No, it was the resigned nature of that small , serious voice that robbed the old wolf of his senses once again, forcing him to fumble blindly for words in a way that even Talitha had never been able to manage. A lie seemed the easiest course, and yet the patient stare directed at him was too reminiscent of her own and the truth seemed to be the only thing that would leave his mouth with any ease.

"I tried not to, but I think she was afraid"

Nellas sighed and it was such an adult gesture coupled with a sad shake of the head, that it might have been comical if this had not been the least amusing moment of Solas' long, long life. The fear and anger he braced himself for in response to his answer did not come, instead he watched a small hand pass over the scarred line of her cheekbone before the boy bent and placed the lightest of kisses in the very same place. When he slipped around the side of the couch and stood before Solas as imperious as any general despite his diminutive stature, the stylised god found himself bending at the knee, if only to bring the familiarity of that stare into a closer proximity.

"Why are _you_ not afraid?"

The boy lifted his thin shoulders in a shrug that seemed to answer everything and nothing at the same time, and when he reached out to touch the furred sash bound over his shoulder, Solas found himself becoming very still, as if only now realising his capacity for destruction and what it could mean for this child should he make the slightest wrong move. What had he done to deserve such an unbalancing moment in his path after all this time, and how was it that so small a creature could make him so afraid of another's regard?

"Mother says that we should save our fear for the people we love, I don't really understand, but I've seen scarier things than you"

To this, Solas raised a brow and more questions grew on his tongue until the boy tugged on his arm and gestured to the stair case. Solas threw an apprehensive glance to the sleeping figure on the couch, she had attacked the men at her gates with no mercy, and her violence towards him had been full of a panicked fury, her state of mind when she woke was unlikely to be friendly, if she were to wake to find him in the proximity of her son, there was no telling the outcome.

"Perhaps we should…."

"Don't be a baby, she's nicer when she doesn't have to wear the mask"

The words struck him like a thunderbolt, and their meaning went deep enough to allow himself to be drawn to his feet and led away from the fireplace as meek as a lamb. It had always been about masks between them. The mask he had to wear in order to keep his identity safe, the one she wore when called upon to make the decisions that would hurt, the same one she stepped behind whenever the moments they shared went too far and called for his intervention. She swapped that mask for another when it came time to lead the Inquisition against him. But the last one, this mask of bone and iridescent feathers was perhaps saddest of all, if only because the fallacy of it all could be recognized, even by a child.

He was barely aware of where he was being led, the halls were dark enough to revive chilled memories of a time when these halls echoed with the sluggish footfalls of the approaching dead, but Nellas moved with a freedom that spoke of far more familiarity with this place than Solas who had only ever been here once and had been quite glad not to visit again. The sorrow that had once bled into these walls did not seem to touch the child who moved through the deep shadows as if they were friends, guiding his steps to the second floor where the previously darkened library glowed golden in the light of several small lamps placed at varying intervals. Now the tugging on his arm is more insistent and he sensed a current of excitement pass through the boy as he was drawn to the light amongst the bookshelves, dimly aware that in his current state of mind he likely wouldn't have been able to refuse the boy anything.

At first he wasn't quite sure of what he was seeing while his eyes adjusted to the light, the shapes seemed to swarm before his eyes before his returning focus allowed him to see the wonderful simplicity of their composition. The pictures occupied every space of the walls that the boy had been presumably able to reach, some of them even climbing the bookshelves in varying shades of chalk and Nellas' actions so far, hinted at a soul older than its years, they were the renderings of child, the depictions of a hero as seen through his eyes. It was almost unfair, how quickly his mind snapped to an image of his own self, carefully documenting the history of the inquisition upon the walls of the rotunda, the comparison accurate enough to make him fearful all over again as the truth presented itself with no care for his it might change things or how dramatically it shifted the balance of his world.

Here and there amongst the stark primary colours, patches of black, red and grey depicted figures at the feet of a creature with crudely drawn horns and a bright sword. The largest of these patches loomed over that figure on a far wall, and Solas felt himself drawn to it, if only for the malevolence that had managed to somehow be communicated even through the most unpracticed of hands. He reached out to touch the marks upon the wall, only to jump and pull his hand back when Nellas spoke up from beside him.

"Sera said it was a pride demon, it wanted me to say yes. It said if i was powerful enough, mother wouldn't have to fight anymore"

The horror must have been plain on his face, for the boy reached up and patted his arm reassuringly.

"It's okay, mother cut off it's head and made it into a hat, at least that's what Sera said. But before then it…"

Now the boy palmed his own cheek and Solas finally understood the nature of some of those scars Talitha bore, he was also quick to note the edge of guilt that glimmered dully in those young eyes, finding himself dismayed that he should recognise and empathise with that expression so keenly. Only now does it become possible to lift the veil he had thrown over the elephant in the room, the work of a subconscious that had wanted to preserve his sanity long enough to come to some sort of shaken terms with the truth that now looked at him with that open curiosity once again. This was his son, a child of his own making, a whole other person who had existence had gone alongside his own all this time. He was not a dream or an idea of a future that could never be possible, his very being defied every inch of pragmatism that had become the one reliable stability in recent years.

Had he known…..

That thought trailed off into a land of uncertainty, and a crushing guilt followed in its wake because even here and now, he could not rightly say if things had been different if he _had_ known. Was that why she hid? Did she fear that his darker nature would finally breach that last piece of humanity left in him enough to do his own child harm? Had she painted him as monster to be depicted in swirls of black and red upon these walls, or had she spun legends out of pity, stories of a man he no longer was.

"You're him aren't you?"

He found himself unable to answer, precisely because he could not fathom which version of 'him' she had revealed, if she had done so at all. The idea that she might have made him a complete non entity in this child's life, managed to touch him in a place that had never been hurt before, regret seeping easily into the wound left behind.

"She doesn't talk about you, but sometimes when she dreams….I can't help it, sometimes I'm just there. Sometimes _you're_ there, and it's like she can't decide whether she's happy or sad."

Now it was the boy's turn to look uncertain….and yes, just a little bit guilty for invading his mother's dreams. For Solas it is yet another small revelation, and the former pride demon's interest in a small child became clearer, fleetingly he had to wonder if the influence of his own blood changed the nature of this boy's magic. A youngling wandering the fade alone was a dangerous prospect, one that had likely forced Talitha to be on her guard even when the boy slept. Nellas did not seem phased by his lack of answer, having seemingly decided for himself long ago, and Solas had to wonder if Talitha knew how transparent her secrets had become to her son.

Their son.

"What else do you know of me?"

The question was wholly self indulgent, but he found himself suddenly desperate to know the part he played in his own son's mind, for never had another's thoughts seemed so crucial in that moment. His entire world currently stood upon it's head, and the only thing that came to him clearly was the desire not to appear as a monster in this innocent creatures eyes. Even as he followed the child's lead and sat himself on the floor across from the boy, he knew that if he had an ounce of decency left in him he would get as far away from here as possible before his seemingly toxic influence spread more disaster in his wake. But the boy was just as compelling as his mother, and he fell into an attentive silence as he watched the strain of articulating complex thoughts, capture the boy's expression in a tight frown.

"I know you didn't used to fight, Dagna and Sera used to talk about it when they thought I wasn't listening. Dagna said that you loved each other, but Sera said you made it all messy by lying a lot. She said a lot of words I'm not allowed to say, I don't think she liked you much."

It occurred to Solas once more that in some ways he had been responsible for Sera's death, and he wonders how he would ever go about explaining such a thing to a child, but there was something in the way Nellas spoke of her, that told him the boy already knew somehow.

" I know that mother is afraid of you, but not like when she's afraid of monsters, it's different….sadder?"

He looked to Solas as if perhaps he could define it any better, but the boy had no idea how well he had phrased yet another complex thought into so simple a sentence. Solas had sensed that fear, hidden beneath the panicked rage, something that went beyond the reclaiming of the orb or even the discovery of their son. Did she fear his manipulation, or perhaps the way she had resigned herself to the knowledge that love did not wither with age or tragedy.

"I know that you want something she hid from you….and I know that you're my father, even though she doesn't want me to"

Now the boy was apprehensive, as if he expected Solas to call him a liar, or perhaps refute the truth in some other way, he needn't have worried however, if there were words of denial to be had, they were beyond the old wolf's grasp for now. He could not deny what was plainly there in front of him, that single moment of their desire realised, now crafted into the mortal sat before him, just as real as she has always been, and just as dangerous. In the depths of his mind he hears the brittle crack, a sound he has never forgotten and it's enough to utterly horrify him into standing up and pressing his back against one of the book cases. He had not revisited the memory of Kester in many years, that it should find him here and now is a terrifying prospect, as though his subconscious were offering the unforgivable suggestion in defence to the oncoming danger his own son presented when it came to the resolve of his mission.

The feelings this boy evoked in him were both powerful and invasive enough to steal past all his careful defences, and for once he had no frame of reference to enlighten him, no tales from the fade could define the sensation of burgeoning possessiveness coupled with a fear that went deeper than flesh and bone. He barely recalled his own family and a thousand or more years had not prepared him to stumble upon his own progeny like this.

"I think perhaps I should see you to your room, it is late, and I must speak to your mother"

He felt like a coward, and the boy seemed to agree, his expression turning mutinous as he stood with a narrow eyed glare.

"You're going to hurt each other again aren't you?"

Had the accusation merely been hurled at his feet alone, Solas might have accepted it with good grace, but the boy seemed to understand more than what lay upon the surface of his strange and ultimately doomed relationship with the Dalish woman. Was there a little pride to be felt amid the confusing maelstrom of his thoughts when he imagined how intelligent the boy was, how attuned to people he had become? Perhaps, but it was a small and fragile sensation, and one he was not certain he had any right to posses.

"I am hoping that will not be the case"

Nellas did not look convinced, though he had clearly formed his own views about the mysterious figure that had haunted his mother's dreams, that did not necessarily mean that he trusted him. The mother protected the son, and the son endeavoured to do the same while simultaneously trying to unravel the tangled history of his origins. He could only understand the scope of the history between his parents in stories, and even these were pieced together from scraps of memory and rumors, would the boy ever forgive himself for allowing the shadow of the 'monster' fall upon his mother? The conflicting thoughts appeared to translate themselves in the small but constant shifting of his feet, the balling and unballing of fists at his side and the quick darting of those dark blue eyes towards the upper floor where his mother rested above them.

"Be still da'len, I have no intention of harming Talitha, but we have much to discuss"

Perhaps it was her name that finally seemed to ease some of the boys tension, if not entirely then at least enough for him to take a few steps back towards another side door, memory serving to remind him that it led to some of the mansions many bedrooms.

"Will you be gone when I wake up?"

It was almost instinct to say no, the soothing lie coming so easily even to the most unpracticed of tongues when it came to dealing with children. Such lies were easy to come by when you wished to spare a child hurt or fear, but for Solas, it would have been like lying to himself. He could not promise the many things this child might hope for, a true family, peace between two people who had been fighting each other for so long that it ran second nature alongside the love that they shared. And beneath the wants of a small boy, there was the fact that he could not promise to turn away from his path, not when he had come so far and now stood closer than he had before. He could promise nothing but to be true to his nature. He looked down upon his son and understood that this could be the last moment he appeared as anything else but a monster in the child's eyes.

He took to one knee again and bowed his head, removing the leather thong from about his neck, feeling curiously naked without its weight there, yet something about this gesture felt inexplicably right, as if after all these years he had merely carried it here for this very purpose. Perhaps destiny had a somewhat ironic sense of humor. The blackened jawbone hung from his fingers between them, and Nellas' reproachful stare now followed its gentle pendulum swing.

"I cannot promise that I can stay, I think in some way you already know that. But it is a child's duty to hope when the hearts that love him grow heavy. Take it, perhaps there will be a time when I can return, and reclaim what is mine"

Nellas tore his attention away from the pendant long enough to search his face, perhaps seeking one of those easy to come by lies, but eventually he reached out and wrapped one hand about the jawbone that had become as much an icon as his infamous wolfish other half. He watched the boy tuck the pendant into his oversized robes and then fumble amongst his pockets in search of something else that he eventually pressed into the old wolf's hand.

"I was making this for mother, Dagna helped a bit. But I think you need it more"

The boy finally turned away and Solas watched him disappear through the doorway and into the dim hall beyond before he opened his hand to reveal the small trinket laying on his palm. It was a piece of pyrite, rounded and polished until the flecks of fire within gleamed as if alive. The careful carving was clearly created by a child's hand, but the figures that chased each other in an endless circle were defined enough to be easily recognized. A wolf and a hare, both caught in a chase while simultaneously fleeing, the child understood more than his young brain could fully articulate, and that was why his thoughts were painted upon the walls and etched into precious stone.

But Solas could not help but get the feeling that this ceaseless circle was drawing to it's end, the wolf was finally closing his jaws about the creature that had eluded it after all this time, and this time he could not promise that he would not be forced to bite down harder than ever before.

"I tried _so_ hard, I felt your eyes upon my back the entire way, but still I tried"

He stood very slowly, all too aware that a sudden movement right now might tip the fractured edge of that voice as it approached his back. It was as if she spoke in two voices, one that held a deep longing that had been suppressed in every way but her dreams, and another that seethed with a hatred he had no doubt earned. They rolled together into a shaking whisper, each word carrying the potential to set a spark against the volatile feelings that no doubt warred with each other as much as his own had and still did. He turned to watch her approach and his feet moved without his even thinking upon it. They came together like a quiet storm, toe to toe and eye to eye.

"I fought every day to keep him safe, even while I held on to the very thing that could destroy us all"

He stared down into that ruined eye, set amongst the savage scars that underlined her words, making their truth stark and uncomfortable, tapping into that buried place inside him, that foolish, childish part of his soul that once hoped that she would survive his designs unscathed. To destroy something beautiful was a monstrous thing, to drag it around behind him like some sacrificial lamb was worse, ending her life long before now would have been the merciful thing to do. But love tended to have little in the way of mercy and even less of a sense of the appropriate.

Since the moment he had read that small scrap of paper, his thoughts had clambered over each other like starved beasts that clawed and snapped at each other as they fought for importance and clarity. There had been no respite when it came to the conflict of deciding how he should feel, his pragmatic nature tangling with instinct until they both struggled against each other, tightening the knots all the harder. He had held his mourning in check for all these years, syphoning off parts in bursts of emotion when it became too hard to hold all those doors closed, but had he ever really had a chance to acknowledge the depth of his relief to know that she still lived?

Looking down into the broken halves of her face, he remembered the moment he had come to terms with the fact that her life would end upon that battlefield, along with every other that he had called friend. How cowardly he had been in that moment, carefully locking away all that he felt for her, while she bore he own love with resigned pride right until the very end, or so he had thought. For him, her light had been extinguished, a savage conclusion to a story that should have ended so very differently. Now all that she was and all that she could be was suddenly once more tangible and he saw beyond the years of struggle marked upon her twisted flesh, far below to where she still smiled for all the small things that delighted her. For once he let himself feel it, just enough for it to wash over his tired mind and fill his aching limbs, and when it smashed against the shores of his mostly abused heart he felt the reflective pulse of his own long discarded love for her.

Once more his body moved without the direction of thought beyond the guiding beacon of what they had shared, what they _still_ shared, even beneath the layers of war, betrayal and logic. It was as cruel as it had ever been when it guided his arms to lift her body against his, and its double edged nature swept her up in its wake, temporarily discarding her own layers of fear and hate that had grown over the years, Her hand palmed the side of his face, but not to strike or pull free from the prison of his arms when her back met against the hard edges of a bookcase. Rough fingers traced the prominent outlines of his face in the manner of someone desperate to commit its expression to memory.

What they buried between them cared nothing for continued war that awaited them, it did not ask for reasons for all the things they had done to hurt each other, and it didn't give a damn about how much more this would make it hurt when all they briefly pushed aside came rushing back. He kissed her and she did not refuse him, it was the toll they had to pay for something that could not be seared away or buried beneath the heavy weight of reality. They had forged this thing between them, and it remained in one piece despite this painful differences between them, or perhaps it remained _because_ of those very things, but no matter the reason, sooner or later it would always have to be acknowledged, even if they both knew it could likely change nothing. They deepened the kiss between them, turning it into something desperate and hard as both scrambled to taste as much of this fleeting sweetness as they could. Solas could already feel the sands of this stolen moment in time slipping through his fingers, and while she clung to him with all the strength she had in that one arm, he knew she could feel it too.

It came to them in an unstoppable rush, much as it had always done, and just as quickly he felt it ebbing away as the last few grains of time slipped away, leaving that cold feeling of the inevitable in its place. He released her then, setting her feet back to the floor while her hand slipped away from her face to hang limp and defeated at her side. He found his feet taking him to the balcony that looked down upon the main hall below as he mentally forced everything back behind its door, unable to lock it in her presence he could feel the compulsion of those precious memories pressing against his spine.

"Where is it Talitha?"

He saw it coming before he felt the change in the air and turned to catch the blade, its searing edge biting into his palm before he spun them and pressed her back to the carved rail. For a moment she was suspended, tethered only by his hold on her, and the wickedest of thoughts whispered into his ear, how easy it would be to let go, to grant her the death she had escaped so many years ago. He watched that one blue eye widen while he forced the blade's edge to rest against his throat, his blood hissing where it ran along the blades surface from his wounded hand.

"If you truly wanted to kill me my love, you would have done so while I lay unconscious in my own labyrinth. Even your rage lacks conviction"

He waited with the blade pressed to his throat, never once believing that she would or could. Like him, it had been easier to come to terms with his death when he would be one among thousands, but here and now she fought against her own self in a mute war, Hand and blade poised for the strike while the strongest of her resistances held her back. In the space of a second the blade dematerialized and she pushed away from the railing with those strong legs, propelling him back while her hand twisted amongst the his robes.

"I cannot...I _will_ not let you have it. It's the only thing left stopping you from doing something insane!"

"And will you run forever?. You _know_ that I cannot stop now, it is too late and I have done too much. Deny me this and it will all have been for nothing, I will be forced to hunt you to the ends of this earth, and when there is nowhere left to run, when your strength has reached its limits i will be forced to murder the mother of my.."

Her hand untwisted from his robes, the palm pressing against his mouth as she shook her head again and again, denying him the last of his words, denying him the claim that she had kept from him all these years. But there were some things even she could not run from, though it seems she had been trying all these years. It wasn't simply a matter of keeping him from that final key, she had run because she knew the power of creating something that was part of herself, she understood how it would draw him just as she had once done and still did.

"No, he is...he is _mine_ , I will never allow him to share your burdens. I ran because there was always enough of you left to love him, but it would never be enough to set your madness aside. You stand here and tell me that you _cannot_ stop, that there is no choice, but that...is...a...lie!"

She tore away from him now, turning to grip the rail, her shoulders rising in a shudder as he dispersed his magic, closing the wound in the centre of his palm. His other hand remained balled at his side as he restrained himself from reaching out in the simplest gesture of comfort, and he briefly wondered if he would still feel that instinct even when she finally forced him to take her life.

"For all that I love you Solas...you are still a coward"

He felt the pressure in his jaw as his teeth ground together, the accusation searing his pride just as effectively as the blade had seared his flesh. It was ironic that the coldest part of himself had often asked how a mortal could truly know who he was, and yet she was so often able to cut him to the quick, finding her way through the layers of ice and steel to find _just_ the right nerve. He opened his mouth to ask how she could call him a coward of all things, when she continued.

"You think you will save them all when you tear down the veil, you think it will absolve you if you die for them, but once again you are simply going to smash the sky and then run away into death so you won't have to live with what comes next. But _they_ will. They will watch this world burn and they will carry all those deaths on their shoulders. It is easy to stick to your convictions when you know you won't be around to share the horror"

He wanted to argue, he did not seek to run willingly into his own death, it was simply a price that must be paid and he had reconciled with this, had come to understand it as his final sacrifice. To have her deconstruct this into the actions of a child who wished to cover his eyes against the consequences left him feeling unclean. He could not bear to feel this way, not after so much time spent trying to come to terms with what he must do, the strength of will he had exerted just to bring himself this far, knowing the catastrophe he must bring upon this ghost world. He rejected her understanding of his motivations in the only way he could, by lashing out equally as hard, for her heart was as open to him as his was to her.

"You allowed me to mourn you. I watched them rip you apart and understood that nothing would ever be the same again while your blood stained my hands"

She turned to him and he saw no denial there on her face, only acceptance of what she had done, and this wasn't good enough, the rush of passion and relief were gone and the desire to wound her as deeply as she could wound him had replaced it, even when every other part of his being knew he would regret the moment the instant that mean moment of satisfaction was over.

"You let them all die for you and you speak to me of cowardice. You ran Talitha, you ran from them, you ran from me"

He reached out now, pressing and splaying his hand over a stomach he had never seen grow large with his own child. He had been denied the miracle of that birth and all the small moments of growing that had created the boy who had shown him no fear.

"He is my son, and you tried to run from that too. How did you do it Talitha, what sacrifices did you make just to spend your life running?"

He let her go and watched her body sag, the defeat not quite as visceral as he had hoped, yet she still slid to the floor with an empty eyed stare that saw past this room and the house surrounding it, likely seeing every one of the sacrifices he spoke of. He knelt before her, his eyes now demanding the truth, intercepting the blank gaze until her one good eye finally levelled with his.

"It was Vivienne who died that day. It should have been me, it _would_ have been me if not for Nellas. The moment I knew what was growing inside me, nothing else mattered. Not you, not the Inquisition, just him. After all that I had given up since the conclave, I refused to sacrifice my child"

As it turned out, his sharp tongue didn't cut quite so far because it had simply passed over old wounds she had been inflicting upon herself for years. He could hear it in the dull acceptance of her words, and it gleamed weakly in her dispassionate gaze. He turned his hand in the air in a gesture for her to continue, and for a moment he almost thought he caught the ghost of a smile, and he remembered the way she used to make the same motion when he paused in the midst of one of his stories. It should have moved him, but he'd spent long enough tripping over old memories that some of them failed to penetrate quite as deep as the rest.

"I went to Cassandra, utterly convinced she would curse me for a traitor, but she understood….and somehow that was almost worse. Between her and Vivienne they concocted a plan. The first enchanter would take my form and my place upon the battlefield, we knew you would not rest unless you thought me dead. I pleaded with them to find another way, but they were already fated to die when you brought your army to Skyhold, Vivienne considered it an _honor_ to have her death mean something more"

The bitter edge of her voice told him what she thought of such honor, though it might have made it easier for Vivienne to charge across the battlefield knowing she would suffer the hate they had all gathered for the Inquisitor, for Talitha, she had simply sent a friend out to the slaughter. In her years as the Inquisitor she had shared their pain and soothed their private shames. She had drawn truth from them and given the same in return, every life she had saved was a victory that had made the loss of her now distant future worth it. And then she had been forced to place them all between herself and his endless quest to finish what he had started.

"My grief for all of them chased me, if not for Cassandra's insistence that Sera accompany me, i believe it might have crushed me. I closed my eyes and I watched them die one by one, and when I opened them I still saw this world through a red haze. Then he was born and suddenly none of it mattered, none of the blood or the sacrifice or all the pain that was waiting for me still, because I had _him_ "

Only now did her tears fall while her face screwed up in the agony of shame he had wanted so badly only moments before. However his heart is as fickle as it has always been where this woman is concerned and those tears did not serve to justify his ego, nor did they drag her down to his level. Instead he is left to wonder what it must have felt like to turn away from duty simply to save a single life, how deeply would _those_ scars run?

"Why did you not come to me Talitha, I could have…"

"You have sacrificed so much in your pursuit for the old world you have lost, I would not give you the opportunity to sacrifice him too. Thedas fears the Dread Wolf, and if any one of those people who now shiver quietly on their thrones ever found out who he was they would seize upon the chance to test your convictions with his life in the balance. I have kept him safe from them all this time, and I have kept him safe from you because if that moment were ever to come, if you were forced to choose him over that end you so desperately want….we both know you would not choose him"

In the silence that followed this declaration, she seemed to search his face for the smallest protest and he could swear that he almost saw a flicker of hope there. He found himself searching for that strange, alien feeling the child had evoked in him, a feeling that all his experience did not allow him to name, and when he tried to imagine that feeling overcoming what had become part of his very nature….even he could not fathom how that would turn out. Were he a better man with a clearer path he might have been able to tell her what she wanted to hear, but he had lost the ability to lie to her long ago, it would be like lying to himself.

"How could this have happened to us?"

The look she gave him in answer to that hoarsely whispered question, was reminiscent of the old days when he asked questions she had thought of as 'charmingly stupid', a roll of the eyes followed by the sardonic curving of her mouth as she let the back of her head rest against the rails behind her.

"We felt the end coming and thought we could get away with giving in just one last time. Basic biology did the rest. Who would have thought you'd still be quite so...potent after all that time asleep."

He bit hard on the inside of his mouth, her facetious tone catching him off guard amidst the strain of emotion and highly strung nerves. It wasn't all that funny and yet he wanted to laugh anyway because there was always something absurd about the nature of their relationship. Perhaps it would be easier if they could choose only love or hate, instead they seemed to dance through every spectrum of emotion available to them. If he could have despised her for her mortality and how fragile it made her, perhaps he could have finished this with less pain, but she had refused to stay pale before his eyes. She made him laugh, she made him _think_ and she made him doubt and he had been prepared for none of it. He reached out now and she didn't flinch away, they were long since past the pretences of resistance, he traced the twisted, white scars, following them to her jawline where he cupped her chin and centered here good eye upon him, hating the words that came to his mouth instead of the promise he knew she dearly wanted.

"Please Talitha, tell me where it is"

He watched her eyes close and her head turn away as she grasped one of the rails behind her to pull herself to her feet once more. His hands snatched out, his grip upon her hips hard enough to almost certainly be painful, and his forehead came to rest at her belly while he held her there. He was not a man accustomed to begging, but what else could he do when he knew he could not leave this place empty handed. If he walked away now she would disappear again and this time she would go deep enough to never be found again.

"Please, I cannot let this all be for nothing"

He heard the quiet sound of her tears as she carefully unravelled each of his fingers before stepping away from the circle of his arms.

"For a man who has seen everything in the fade that he loves, you are so very blind. The world you want returned is _your_ world Solas, not theirs. All they have ever wanted, all _we_ have ever wanted is the same freedoms as the rest of the world, and you are so adamant on returning what was lost that you don't even see that you have already given them that"

At first he couldn't quite understand what she meant, not until he thought back upon what Skyhold had become, how it had grown beyond simply a place to recuperate while he sought his foci. His people were growing and they bowed to nobody but him, even when he tried to dissuade them from doing so. But it wasn't enough, they could not see how diminished they were, they were blind to the potential that awaited them, why could she not understand that. How could she claim to know anything with no frame of reference beyond her sheltered existence with the Dalish?

"It is never as simple as that Talitha, how long will this peace remain before more swords come to our door, how many times must i intimidate and even slaughter to keep my people safe. If i give back what was stolen then they may never again have to feel their backs bend beneath the heel of another. Why is this so difficult for you to understand, this world was once ours, it can be again!"

He could feel the fervor of his own sermon rising along with his frustration, and yes...even a touch of anger, the emotional schism shifting once more with no real end in sight.

"Because this isn't about them you arrogant bastard! This is about _you_ , cleaning up after the mess you made. Oh you did it with the very best of intentions, but now you're just a child fumbling amongst the broken pieces, trying to force them together again so you won't have to feel so alone!"

His rage broke free of his throat in a coughing roar as he charged her, and she did not flinch, not even as he grasped her throat and held her aloft, pinned to another bookcase, though now his passion had taken a different course. He felt the rapid clamour of her pulse against his fingers and once more he was visited with the notion of how _easy_ it would be just to tighten his grip.

"YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING!"

Incredibly, she smiled, even as she tried to peel his hand from about her throat. It shocked him enough that he almost let go.

"I know….enough….to see you turning...into the very thing...you hate!"

It wasn't clear as to whether his anger or his fear caused him to fling her away from him then, her words had scalded him as effectively as if he had stepped into one of the bubbling acid pools that had surrounded the dragon's lair in the Exalted plains. Whichever caused the reflective action, the result was the same, she slid along the floor, colliding heavily with a table piled high with books that now tumbled to the floor. He had barely begun to feel disgust at his own actions when he was forced to throw himself out of the way as a barrage of lightning bolts hurled themselves at the very spot in which he had stood. The bolts careened off the walls, forcing both of them to find shelter beneath tables as each bolt chose a random direction, smashing into shelves and leaving deep fissures in the polished tiles.

He lashed out without thinking, his magic gathering into another of those ethereal fists that slammed into the the bookcase beside her. It teetered on one edge for a moment, the books sliding free to bury her beneath them before the heavy case finally toppled into the one next to it with an almighty crash that stopped just short of crushing her beneath it. The pile of books first heaved then fell away as she dragged herself out from beneath them, teeth gritted with effort as she tried to find purchase on the tiles that slid beneath her hand. Solas knew he had only seconds to neutralise her before she attacked again, before his own natural instincts took over long enough for him to kill her without meaning to. Both of them now struggled to be the first on their feet, and both were suddenly forced to drop and roll away again as something hit the ceiling above them, sending large chunks of gilt woodwork and plaster raining down to smash on the floor between them. He was forced to throw an arm up to his eyes as the ruined plaster threw up clouds of white dust that forced its way down his throat with every breath. Only when the dust began to settle did he notice Dagna's distinctive outline standing between them, a vial of what he recognised to be antivan fire in each hand.

"ENOUGH! Do you two realise what you have done?"

Across the room, Talitha had finally managed to pull herself free of the debris, a dozen minor cuts bleeding freely going unnoticed as she tried to focus on the dwarven woman. Dagna looked ready to shoot both of them on the spot until she closed her eyes and fought visibly for calm.

"Nellas is gone. I was still trying to break out of that cursed room this fantastical idiot locked me in when he came to the door. He told me that he was going to fix things, he was going to make it so you wouldn't have to fight anymore"

Talitha froze as effectively as if she had been touched by winter's grasp. He thought he had witnessed the full range of her horror when he had revealed his plans to her in the crossroads, but the expression that stole her marred features now was ugly in its distress.

"What...how….what did he mean by 'fix things', he's barely seven years old!"

"That's old enough to understand that his parents are hell bent on tearing each other to pieces. Tal...the orb is gone!"

It was as if the dwarven woman had swept a blade at her legs, he watched her crumple like a puppet whose strings had been severed, the sound she released somewhere between a scream and a sob. For Solas there was only a creeping numbness, as if this moment had been inevitable the moment he had set eyes upon the child, one last predestined test of his convictions.

"What could he possibly plan to do with it?"

Dagna turned away from her friend to look at him, her previously seething expression now pulled down into its own grimace of misery, and perhaps just a touch of guilt.

"He's been in my workshop, one of my tools is missing. A hammer, i've been tinkering with it for the last two years, trying to make it powerful enough to...to destroy the orb"

He prepared himself for the tide of fury to rise in response to the gall of this creature, that she would presume to destroy his last hope for redemption should surely call for his rage. But it wouldn't come, instead there was the slow but rapidly growing sensation of the world sliding out from beneath his feet as he imagined something so dangerous in the hands of a child, _his_ child. He watched Talitha trying to choke down her own impending grief in order to speak and could not find it in his heart to blame her, because all roads on this disastrous course, started with him. He had led destruction into her path just as he had done before. Thousands of years old and he was still making the same mistakes in new and painful ways.

"H-how could he possibly know about your work...or where the orb was hidden?"

Dagna lifted her arms in adrenaline fuelled exasperation, her own voice cracking with that fine edge of panic.

"I don't know, how did he manage to lock Sera in the servants quarters the last time she tried to give him a bath. The only explanation I can ever fathom with Nellas is that he's _your_ son. Given that his fathers just about the most powerful mage left in Thedas, anything's possible, do you remember what it was like trying to hide his birthday presents?"

Talitha slipped her hand into the tangled mass of her hair, fingers twisting cruelly amongst the strands, making her appear deranged and perhaps only a few steps from cracking entirely. He had seen this only once before, the night after she had returned from Redcliffe castle with the memory of his death still fresh enough to push her towards a sort of waking delirium. He moved quickly, ever conscious of the threat that remained in Dagna's hands, though in truth it almost seemed as though she had forgotten the vials she held between them, which possibly made them all the more dangerous. He pulled Talitha to her feet, shaking her once to pull her back from the treacherous edge her mind was spiralling towards.

"Help us Talitha, where would he go?"

"Th-the Knights tomb...Sera used to tell him stories...but he _can't_ go there, it's been overrun, he'll be…."

Desperate tears choked the rest of the words from her throat and he realised that this was the first time he had seen her truly weakened. Even in the crossroads, when he had imagined her as broken as she could be, she had found strength enough to plead with what she had thought to be his better nature. It was distressing to witness and ultimately useless to them now. He jerked his head to Dagna who at least seemed to be holding back most of her own panic.

"What does she mean?"

"That place has always attracted demons, when you came upon it with the Inquisition they had been chased out by the red Templars, now they roam that place unchecked, it's why Fairbanks and his people moved on, too many were making their way to the outposts, there's no way he could make it through them alive!"

He felt the horror of such an image touch him in that same unguarded place he had never known to exist before he had come face to face with his son, and perhaps in that moment he understood how Talitha could fall apart when she was needed most. When he had been forced to defend the people in his care, he had done so with little passion save for the sting of his own pride and that single imperative to make very despicable thing he had done so far, somehow worth it. But there was more than pride to be found in him now, in its place stood a very real fear he didn't have time to examine.

"Talitha, look at me...look at me damn it. He is _your_ son, as young as he is I do not believe you would raise a foolish child. He was clever enough to know where you hid it and clever enough to know you were developing the means to destroy it, he must think he has a way to make it past them"

It was as though his voice had thrown a switch. Her eyes jerked to his face as something seemed to dawn behind them. He watched her raise a hand between them, blinking at it almost stupidly before she swore and tore herself from his grasp.

"He took the ring, oh gods bless his devious little soul, he took the ring of doubt"

She moved with purpose now, striding across the hall and out through the doorway in which he had last seen Nellas disappear, but when he moved to follow he found Dagna in his path, her face screwed up in a determined expression that looked unfamiliar upon her usually sweet natured face. He could have swatted her aside as easily as a man disposing of an insect, and this thought alone rooted his feet right where they were.

"I haven't forgotten what you did Fen'Harel, neither has she, but her mind's always been a tangled mess where you're concerned. About ninety percent of me is pretty sure I should burn you where you stand, but you'd probably survive and like it or not she needs your help to bring Nellas back alive. The ninety percent that wants you dead, is pretty sure you're gonna screw this up royally too, so do me a favour, for his sake, for _hers_...prove me wrong"

He did not receive a chance to answer before Talitha returned, tossing something heavy to Dagna who caught it deftly as the Dalish knelt before her. It took only a few seconds to realise what it was and who had made it, likely to be worn alongside the mask of bone and feathers. It had been carved from the same material, though the bone had been carefully cut and reformed together by metal bands and various now watched Dagna fix the 'arm' in place by another series of straps that cut across the chest and back, when Talitha raised the arm before to her face he saw the stylised metal claws that had been affixed to the ends of fingers that would never show the same dexterity she had once possessed, but they appeared lethal enough.

When she stood again he could see no trace of the former panic that had gripped her so strongly, only that same determination that had once driven her to go out and meet an archdemon amongst the flaming ruins of Haven. He had stood beside her then, despite his better judgment and all that he risked should he fall, he found himself unsurprised that he would do so again, not only for her, but for a child he barely knew, a child that was just as likely to be another dangerous distraction as she was. He watched her own version of that cold pragmatism show itself in a brief argument with Dagna as she insisted that the woman remain behind, her arguments gentle and patient until she finally snapped and pointed out that the dwarf was no fighter and they could ill afford the distraction of keeping her safe whilst navigating their way through the demons that made the old elven tomb their home.

By the time they left the mansion it was dark enough for a flicker of her distress to make it through the determination she had thrown over herself like a cloak, and he had no doubt that she was already imagining all the horrors that might befall a child in that darkness. Once again he reached out to her, because he couldn't ever seem to negate that automatic desire to comfort this one woman above all others, even when the ill used chambers of his own heart seemed good for little else but the simplest task of keeping him moving. She didn't shrink away from him, but her head bowed and he could feel the tension working its way up her spine as she spoke.

"I know that you want to save more than our son's life in that place, but if you dare to make it a choice between him and that orb….I will kill you. And if you should kill me first, I will drag myself across the very fade, I will find a way to crawl inside your mind and I will destroy you from the inside out. That is my promise to you, my love"

He let his hand fall away as she advanced towards the gate, leaving behind her threat with him like some silent phantom. Before she could reach the gates that cut off the overgrown gardens from the forest beyond, he found himself calling out to her, once more not knowing what it was that he meant to say before the words were released.

"If you do not trust my motives, why would you allow me to come with you?"

She paused at the gates and sighed before turning back to him, and for a moment she wore that same look of resignation when she had explained that the love they shared was simply inevitable, even if it wasn't enough to bring some sort of peace between them.

"Because I made a promise to you before I left you in that cave, before the walls closed between us I….I promised you that...even in death, I would not give up on you, that I would never stop believing that you could see through your own obsession, not until the very end"

Her eyes dared him to laugh or refute such a childish belief, after all that he had done, after all that he had forced her to do, surely she could not believe him capable of such redemption. But he didn't laugh, nor did he pull apart her one last hope for him by laying the facts before her feet. He could only silently marvel at the fact that even the smallest part of her could still hold such faith in him, even after all this time. For the first time in seven years, he finally understood the nature of those last words that had eluded him for so long.

"Solas?"

He blinked, not quite realising that he had been standing there in silence for almost a full minute until she spoke and tore his mind away from that cave and the promise she had made.

"Yes vhenan?"

"Do not make me pay for that promise with our son's life"


End file.
